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THOUGHT-HIVES. 



BOOKS 



EEV. THEODOEE L. CUYLEE. 



I. 

THE EMPTY CRIB : A Book of Consolation. 

24mo, gilt. $1 00. 

" This beautiful volume will find a welcome ia many a household in which 
loved ones, touched by ' God's Finger,' have fallen asleep." — Independent 

" Those who have loved and lost little ones will find in this touching memo- 
rial many a rich spring of consolation." — S. S. Times. 

" It is an offering of the heart's best affections, and is fragrant with the 
graces of the Christian nursery." — N. W. Presbyterian. 

II. 

THE CEDAR CHRISTIAN. 

16mo. 90 cents. 

" Many of these papers are intens^e ; they are all clear and forcible ; and some 
of them are replete with that grace which comes of fervor, — that soft and mel- 
low light which the fancy throws around what the heart sees as well as the eyes.'* 
Union. 

III. 

STRAY ARROWS. 

18mo. 60 cents. 
Sent by mail, postage prepaid, on receipt of the price. 



ROBERT CARTER AND BROTHERS, 

New York. 




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BY 



THEODORE L. CUYLER, 



PASTOR OF LAFAYETTE AVENUE CHURCH, BROOKLYN. 






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NEW YORK: 
ROBERT CARTER AND BROTHERS, 

530 Broadway. 
1872. 



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Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1872, by 

ROBERT CARTER AND BROTHERS, 

In the OflSce of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. 





CAMBRIDGE: 
PRESS OF JOHN WILSON AND SON. 



COINTTEI^TS. 



PAGE 

Thought-Hives 7 

The Soul First 14 

The Great Choice 20 

Deceitfulness or Sin 28 

Paying the Fare 36 

To Jesus — at Omce 42 

"Six no More" 49 

Hymns of Homage to Christ 56 

Giving up — for Christ 63 

The Grace that Pinches . 68 

The Rich Soul 73 

The Honest Disciple 94 

The Father of English Hymns 101 

Brains, and How to Use Them 108 

Sins of the Tongue 128 

Who Kindled the Fire 135 

Christ Cleansing the Heart-Temple 143 

Wedded for Heaven 151 

Like Father, Like Family 159 

Wrestling Prayer 165 

Great Expectations from God 171 

Hymns of Longing for Rest 178 

Sunshiny Christians 185 



VI CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

The Bitter Waters Sweetened 192 

The Great Hymn of Providence 199 

Christ in the Night-Storm 206 

The Jewels in the Cup 214 

Where is Your Place 218 

Christ a Servant 224 

Day of Small Things 231 

The Successful Pastor 236 

Plaint of a Minister's Door-Bell 243 

Strengthening a Pasi or'S Hands 250 

Twenty-Five Years in the Pulpit 256 

The Working Temperance Church 263 

Digging for Water 272 

The Shepherd's Sling 279 

Heber and his Hymn 296 

Nothing but Leaves 302 

Hymns of Our Own Land 309 

Before the Judgment Seat 319 

Higher 326 

A Sabbath Morning in Greenwood 333 

A Song of Peace 340 



THOUGHT-HIYES. 



TI^VERY human mind we meet is a moving 
thought-hive. To our eye it is hidden ; 
but to the eye of God it is a hive of trans- 
parent glass. For there is not a thought in 
our hearts, but lo ! O Lord, thou knowest it 
altogether. The thoughts which nestle within 
us, and issue from us in language and in act, 
determine our moral character. " As a man 
thinketh in his heart, so is he." " Keep thy 
heart with all diligence ; for out of it are the 
issues of life." 

The most exquisite piece of sculptifre which 
a Powers or a Palmer ever carved was once 
only a thought ; but their skilful hands smote 
the white marble until the beautiful images of 
the brain came forth. Upon the thought of 



8 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

James Watt and Robert Fnlton we cross the 
trackless sea ; while in its silent depths the 
thought of Professor Morse has laid the magic 
wire over which two continents converse. All 
the grandest enterprises of benevolence and 
all the most stupendous crimes were once only 
invisible phantoms in some man's or woman's 
busy brain. The Order of the Jesuits swarmed 
out of Ignatius Loyola's heart-hive ; Sunday 
Schools swarmed out of Robert Raikes'. If 
the jailer of Bedford prison had starved John 
Bunyan, he would have smothered the " Pil- 
grim's Progress " in its cradle. The very Bible 
is only God's blessed and holy thought revealed 
to us : by it we are made wise unto salvation. 
A person is known by the company he 
keeps. So the thoughts which we harbor 
within us, and which go out through the doors 
of our mouths and our hands, determine our 
real character. A holy man gives house-room 
only to pure and godly thoughts ; and he is 
constantly striving to bar up door and window 
against wicked intruders. Out of the treasure- 
house within him proceed all the white -winged 



THOUGHT-HIVES. V 

words and all the beautiful deeds that are a 
blessing unto others. 

Habitual thinking determines whether an 
individual is either Christ's or Satan's. As he 
thinketh, so is he. A sensualist is only a filthy 
thinker. The walls of his mind are hung 
around with lascivious pictures : his inmost 
soul is a brothel. Do a man's thoughts run 
every day upon the bottle ? Then he is a 
tippler or a sot. Does another man's thought- 
hive send out its winged messengers con- 
tinually to gather honey from God's Word and 
His outlying w^orld of Nature ] Then is he a 
devout and happy being. In such an one God 
dwelleth by His Spirit. 

One of the highest of spiritual luxuries is 
the enjoyment of pure and exhilarating and 
sublime thoughts : to such a devout and cheer- 
ful thinker a prison may be a palace. " I 
thought of Jesus," said holy Hutherford, " until 
every stone in the walls of my cell shone like 
a ruby." Wherefore let us keep our hearts, 
our thought-hives, with all prayer and watch- 
fulness ; for out of them are the issues of our 



1 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

life. And no one can handle the pitch of a 
wicked, obscene, or abominable thought for any 
considerable time without being defiled thereby. 
There is no greater torment than to be an 
unclean or intensely selfish or corrupt thinker. 
This is a genuine demoniac possession. Such 
an one is " grievously vexed with a devil." 
To go through some people's hearts would be 
like a walk through Sing- Sing penitentiary. 
Every room has a rascal in it. Out of such 
hearts proceed evil thoughts, murders, adul- 
teries, fornications, thefts, covetousness, pride, 
blasphemy. What a hell in advance to be 
living in such a habitation of the devil ! To 
he such a man or woman for ever is the ever- 
lasting punishment of the lost. 

All thoughts have their germs. The surest 
way to kill a sin is to kill it in the eg^. At 
the very moment when a wicked thought is 
born is the right time to destroy it. These 
little serpents soon become the anacondas that 
strangle conscience and ruin character. How 
important, too, is the nursing into active life 
and vigor of every good suggestion and holy 



THOUGHT-HIVES. 11 

aspiration ! A noble career depends on the 
treatment given to the infant ideas that are 
born in the sonl. The best of these are the 
direct product of the Holy Spirit. To quench 
a good thought is often a quenching of the 
Spirit ; and the eternal damnation of millions 
has been the result of this sin against the 
infinite Love. 

Christ is the purifier of the heart. He who 
walks in constant fellowship with Jesus hath 
the clean heart and the lioly life. And an 
active, prayerful, loving mind, teeming with 
busy plans of usefulness and swarming out 
into deeds of daily beneficence, is a hive of 
blessings, not only to its possessor, but to all 
who partake of its stores of honey. 

Such is the vital importance of pure and 
inspiring thoughts. And if the following pages 
shall awaken in any minds such thoughts and 
induce any to crystallize them into good deeds, 
then the author will not have written in vain. 
This volume begins with the beginnings of a 
true life. It places the soul first, and Jesus 



12 THOUGHT-IIIVES. 

Christ as the first necessity of the soul in the 
divine method of salvation. The duties of the 
seeker after salvation are made plain at the out- 
set. The momentous question, "What must I 
do to be saved ? " is answered with as condensed 
brevity and as clear simplicity as we could 
command. To these words of early guidance 
follow several chapters of practical counsel for 
the Christian life. To adapt doctrine to duty 
in the daily conduct must be the highest aim 
of all faithful teaching from the pulpit or the 
press, by the tongue or by the pen. 

A few leaves from our pastoral experience 
are in this volume. With these are inter- 
woven some words of exhortation to Christian 
laymen, who ought to be our " true yoke- 
fellows " and helpers in the vineyard of the 
Master. Household piety has not been over- 
looked ; nor the claims of the tempted at 
home, or the benighted in heathen lands. We 
have striven to bring a word of heavenly con- 
solation to the wide and ever-widening circle 
of " them that mourn." We have endeav- 
ored to teach the children of sorrow how to 



THOUGHT-HIVES. I'i 

" suck honey out of the rock, and oil out of 
the flinty r.ock." With these pages of practi- 
cal counsel have been blended a few sketches 
and biographies of those hymns that are ap- 
propriate to the heart-experiences set forth. 
The gospel of Jesus is not only a light unto 
our path, but " our song in the house of our 
pilgrimage." 

If this humble work shall prove to be a 
hive of happy or holy thoughts to any fellow- 
pilgrim, then shall the highest aspirations of 
its author be more than satisfied. May the 
Lord make this book like unto that " roll " 
which the ancient prophet ate, and which was 
" in his mouth as honey for sweetness " ! 



THE SOUL FIRST. 



TF you have crossed the Atlantic in a mail- 
steamer, you may have observed how 
ready the captain was to come into the cabin 
on a quiet evening, and to minister to the 
pleasure of his passengers. But if you were 
suddenly to hear the loud tramp of hurrying 
feet across the deck overhead, and the hoarse 
brattling of the first mate's trumpet to " haul 
in the jib," and " close-reef the top-sails," 
would you dare to invite the captain to a 
game of chess, or to listen to an operatic air? 
No ! The sturdy seaman would reply, '' In an 
hour the hurricane may send two hundred 
souls to the bottom, if every thing isn't made 
fast. I can't play with you while the gale is 
playing with my ship." 

My unconverted friend, when your soul is 
saved you may talk about the price of gold, 



THE SOUL FIRST. 15 

or the ten per cent that offers to you in some 
new speculation, or the latest discoveries in 
the gold regions. Until then, your real busi- 
ness must be to flee from the wrath to come, 
and to lay hold on eternal life. What shall a 
man give in exchange for his souH 

When your soul is saved, you may talk 
about building the new house, or adorning the 
present one with pictures and Parisian uphol- 
steries ; you may then discuss the new library, 
or the grand tour, or the series of evening 
entertainments for your friends. We do not 
denounce fine dwellings, or paintings, or Pa- 
rians, or superb libraries, or foreign tours : all 
these things are to be settled by extent of 
purse, and the ability to possess them without 
robbing God or the claims of charity. What 
we insist is, that no one has any right even to 
think of such things while the soul is yet 
under the condemnation of unpardoned sin. 
What right have you to be planning a house 
when you have never thought of your soul's 
dwelling-place through an endless eternity? 
Why insure your property before you have 



16 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

insured your souH Why so anxious about 
getting into "good society" for a dozen or two 
of years on earth, and yet not a moment's 
thought about your soul's everlasting compan- 
ions 1 Why so ready to prepare for every 
thing else except to prepare to die ? 

The simple reason is, that you make this 
world every thing and eternity nothing. You 
do not expect to take up your abode in hell, 
but the business of securing heaven you pro- 
pose to set about when you have nothing else 
to do. At present your whole heart is 
drowned in money-making, or in pleasure- 
seeking, or in getting, keeping, and enjoying 
what your heart most covets. If I come to 
you, Mr. A — , in your counting-room, and 
whisper that God has a claim upon your soul ; 
if I come to you, young Mr. B — , in your 
study ; or to you, Madame C — , with your 
bundle of invitations for a daughter's fete 
beside you, — the prompt answer is, "Please 
don't interrupt me. I am busy." True 
enough : you are busy. So was Daniel busy ; 
but he found time to pray thrice a day, and he 



THE SOUL FIRST. 17 

served God in every thing he did. You are 
busy ; but so was Wilberforce, who did five 
men's work at once, and honored God in 
every act. You are busy, but only busy 
in the service of self and sin : if not a 
Christian, you are not busy in serving God. 
You do not fancy an interruption by one who 
longs to draw your soul to Christ. Well, my 
friend, death will interrupt you, one of these 
days. He will not stop to knock at the door 
of your counting-room, or your new library. 
He will not wait, perhaps, till the daughter s 
fete has passed off. He will come when God 
sends him, and in that moment thy soul will 
be required of thee. 

When Nehemiah was urged to quit the 
rebuilding of Jerusalem, and go down to a 
parley with his enemies on the plain of Ono, 
he replied manfully, " I am doing a great 
work, so that I cannot come down to you." 
Nehemiah was successful, because single- 
hearted. And so must you be, if you ever 
save your soul and serve your God. You 
must say to the world, when it clamors for 



18 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

your time, '' I am doing a great work. I am 
seeking the pardon of my sins. I am settling 
the question of my everlasting destiny. God 
is calling me, and I am finding my way to 
him. The Holy Spirit is striving with me ; 
and, if I grieve him away, he may leave me to 
die as callous as a rock. I have never yet 
prepared to live, much less to die ; and I am 
determined not to give my attention to any 
thing under the sun, until I have given my 
heart to Christ." 

An earnest, resolute setting about the work 
of repentance, and of seeking God, seldom 
fails. Where God's help is invoked, and 
where the aim of the seeking heart is to 
please God, it never fails. God is nigh 
to them who call upon him in spirit and in 
truth. " Ye shall seek me and find me," he 
says, " when ye seek for me with all the 
heart.''' He demands the heart. He de- 
mands the first place in that heart. He 
demands that his will be made the rule of 
your life. He demands that you be ready to 
deny self for his sake. He demands that 



THE SOUL FIRST. 19 

you serve him to your dying hour from prin- 
ciple. He offers to you sustaining grace and 
an everlasting heaven. 

This is a great work, you confess ; " but 
how shall I accomplish it?" God's answer is, 
" Work out your salvation ; for it is God that 
worketh in you." " My grace is sufficient 
for you." Yes, it is a great work ; but Christ 
has done a greater, — he has died to make 
your salvation possible. It will be certain, 
when you give your heart to him. And when 
you so desire to be a Christian that you are 
willing to take up any cross and follow Jesus, 
when you so desire to be saved that you are 
willing to pray for it, and not only pray, but 
give up your favorite sins, and not only for- 
sake sin, but to embrace the Saviour, then the 
work is done, and you have a right to all 
the glorious privileges of a child of God. If 
a child, then an heir, — a joint-heir to heaven's 
inheritance. The soul must he first! And 
Christ first in the soul! Then ''all's well" 
for time and eternity. 



THE GREAT CHOICE. 



A LLOW me the privilege of addressing a 
few plain, affectionate words to one 
who is yet without a hope in Christ. I ad- 
dress you, my friend, as the possessor of an 
immortal soul. In the language in which 
Moses addressed Israel before he went up to 
his mountain death-bed, "I set before you life 
and death : choose life ! " Every one has the 
power of choice. God made you a free moral 
agent. The very fact that you are now read- 
ing these lines proves that you have the power 
of choice. Es^ery Christian in the world is a 
Christian simply because he accepted Christ 
when He was offered. Every impenitent sin- 
ner is yet one because he chooses to he. 
There is no decree of the Almighty which 
forbids your having eternal life, if you desire 



THE GREAT CHOICE. 21 

to secure it. Perhaps you cavil at " God's 
decrees'' Just look at this one : " He that 
believeth on the Lord Jesus Christ shall be 
saved." Or at this one : " As I live, saith the 
Lord, I have no pleasure in the death of the 
wicked." Or at this one : " Whosoever cometh 
to me I will in no wise cast out." God's im- 
mutable decrees, in fact, secure salvation to 
every penitent believer and follower of the 
Lord Jesus Christ. 

When Joshua submitted the great alterna- 
tive, " Choose ye this day whom ye will serve," 
he addressed his auditors as free agents. 
When Christ said to Andrew and James and 
John, " Follow me," he talked to them as 
.rational beings, who had the power of choice. 
If they could not "follow" him, why did he 
ask them? When Simon Peter stood up 
before the mass-meeting in Jerusalem, and 
exclaimed, " Repent, and be baptized in the 
name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, 
and ye shall receive the Holy Ghost," he ad- 
dressed them as free agents ; and three thou- 
sand of them accepted the Divine Saviour. 



22 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

If you ask me what is meant in the Bible 
by " life^' I would answer : It is the favor of 
God ; it is the pardon of your sins ; it is the 
sustaining strength to do right ; it is a union 
of heart to Jesus ; it is a divine support in 
the last hour, and everlasting holiness and joy 
beyond the grave. " Death " is the opposite 
of life : it is the absence of life. Spiritual 
death is the unbroken dominion of sin in this 
world', and the unending punishment of sin in 
the world to come. In this world the God of 
mercy says to every one, "I set before you 
life and death : choose life^ In the next 
world, the divine and all-righteous Judge will 
say to those who choose life, " Come, ye 
blessed of my Father ; inherit the kingdom 
prepared for you." To those who choose 
death he will say, " Depart, ye cursed ! " and 
they " shall go away into everlasting punish- 
ment." 

But you may say, " I do not choose death. 
It is impossible that any sane person should 
deliberately choose to be eternally wretched, 
when he might be eternally happy." This 



THE GREAT CHOICE. 23 

seems very plausible, and there is a sense in 
which it is true. Men do not commonly select 
wretchedness and ruin as the end of their 
voluntary endeavors. They do not set success 
and happiness on the one hand and ruin on 
the other, and then calmly choose to be 
ruined. Yet it is equally true that men are 
continually selecting and pursuing courses 
that inevitably lead to ruin. 

Here is a young man setting out in life. 
Of course, his preference is to become rich 
and prosperous. But he chooses also to lead 
a career of indolence and thriftlessness, which 
inevitably brings him to poverty, and keeps 
him there. His poverty is the fruit of his 
own conduct. Again, no man voluntarily 
chooses the disgrace and disease and horrors of 
drunkenness. But thousands, alas ! do choose 
to tamper with the wine-glass and the brandy- 
bottle, and their own free choice brings them 
surely to the drunkard's self-damnation. Did 
that poor girl who gave her heart and hand 
to the showy vagabond who stole her affec- 
tions choose to become a wretched wife ? 



24 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

Yet she did choose to marry him ; she did 
it in spite of reason and conscience, and 
dearly does she pay the consequences of her 
choice. 

In the same manner, my impenitent friend, 
when you decide to reject the knocking Sav- 
iour from your heart, you do choose to risk 
the awful consequences. When you choose 
to live on in sin, to follow the devices and 
desires of your own lusts, and to grieve the 
Holy Spirit of love, you deliberately choose 
everlasting death. You choose the road that 
leads to death. If you are lost, it will be 
your own fault. It will not be your heavenly 
Father's fault : he says to you, " Choose life ! " 
It will not be the loving Saviour's fault : he 
says to you, " Look unto me, and live ! " It is 
not the fault of that patient Spirit of truth, 
who is now pleading with you to renounce 
sin and accept the atonement offered to you 
in the gospel. 

It is a delightful thought that your encour- 
agements to seek life are so abundant. The 
word of God overflows with encouragements. 



THE GREAT CHOICE. 25 

You may grow discouraged in seeking wealth, 
or health, or office, or great literary attain- 
ments ; but no lining man or woman need 
despair of gaining salvation. If you seek it 
in time, and seek it rightly, it is yours. The 
only time you are sure of is the present ; and 
the only way is, through penitence and faith 
in the crucified Jesus. Eternal life is now 
within your reach. It does not depend on 
intellect, or wealth, or social patronage, or on 
the will of another. It depends on your own 
willingness to accept the Saviour, and by 
divine help to serve him faithfully. God will 
not hinder you, and Satan cannot hinder you, 
if you are in earnest. The only being who 
can destroy you is your own self. God is 
love ; and God sets before you life and death, 
and says to you with infinite tenderness, 
" Choose life ! Give me thy heart ! " 

*' There for tbee the Saviour stands, 
Shows his wounds, and spreads his hands. 
Christ is love, — this know and feel ; 
Jesus weeps, and loves thee still." 

Not long since, a friend came into my study 

2 



26 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

in deep distress of mind : she had been 
awakened by hearing me preach from the 
words, " Choose life." She wished to know 
what she should do. I said, " You have been 
opposing God all your life. You have shut 
Christ from your heart. He seeks admission. 
Let him in. Give yourself all up to him. 
Choose life." I prayed with her, and be- 
sought her to yield herself to Jesus while we 
were on our knees. After rising up, I handed 
to her Newman Hall's blessed little book, 
" Come to Jesus.'' She laid it down, and 
modestly said, '' I want now to pray too." 
We knelt once more together ; and in sweet, 
artless language she just poured out her whole 
soul in penitent petition, and gave herself up 
to Jesus. She rose with brightened counte- 
nance, and said, " I feel more peaceful now." 
She had made the great choice ; she had 
given her heart to God; and on the next 
Sabbath she stood up and made a public pro- 
fession of her faith in the Eedeemer. My 
friend, you can make the same choice. It is 
only a moment's work, when you are in 



THE GREAT CHOICE. 27 

earnest. God offers you his help. I have 
set befoi^e you life and death. Before you 
lay down this book determine to choose 

LIFE. 



THE DECEITFULNESS OF SIN. 



TTOW hard it is for physicians to unde- 
ceive a consumptive patient ! It is so 
painful that the office is seldom done. The 
victim of that flattering disease — which so 
often selects the fairest for its prey — tells us 
every day that she is better, and " will soon 
be out again." The hectic flush which she 
mistakes for returning health is only a cun- 
ning mask behind which death steals in to 
strike the doomed one to the heart. Such is 
the deceitfuluess of disease. 

We could to-day summon ten thousand 
slaves of the stimulating cup, and not one of 
them would acknowledge that he intends to 
become a drunkard. The fatal symptoms of 
their sin are all too legible in the flushed 
face, the unsteady gait, and the tipsy talk ; 
and yet they stoutly insist that they " never 



THE DECEITFULNESS OF SIN. 29 

take more than is good for them," and that 
they " know just when to stop." This is 
Satan's catechism, which every tippler learns. 
Such is the deceitfulness of evil habit. 

Now, just as the victims of a consumption 
or a cancer deceive themselves, just as the 
inebriate tries to conceal from himself the 
fatal serpent in his social glass, so do all 
impenitent persons deceive themselves as to 
the nature and enormity of their sins. They 
regard all sin against God as a light thing. 
Dishonesty in trade, falsehood, adultery, theft, 
treason, they understand perfectly to be ex- 
ceedingly injurious to their victims and to 
society. But while they are keenly alive 
to every trespass against commercial integrity 
or social order, they utterly belittle all heart- 
sin against a holy God. They regard it as a 
trifle ; and secretly a vast majority of impeni- 
tent sinners hold that a future hell is an 
improbability. I once heard a learned judge 
say that the idea of future punishment was 
" a ghost-story, only fit to frighten weak- 
minded women." What his infidel lips 



f30 THOUGHT- HIVES. 

expressed coarsely millions who are not 
"infidels" believe in their inmost hearts. 
Their " hearts are hardened through the 
deceitfulness of sin " as to the very essence 
of sin, and as to the extent of their own 
guiltiness. 

We do not exaggerate the importance of a 
right estimate of sin. This is a vital point in 
the soul's salvation : it is more than a technic 
of theology. The nature of sin and its in- 
herent ill-desert is a precise point where the 
rejectors of future punishment diverge from 
the path of truth. Only admit that sin is an 
infinite oftence against Jehovah, and their 
error perishes in a moment, under the direct 
threatenings of God's Word. It is at this 
point that Socinians leave us, and leave their 
Bibles too. They assume that sin is a light 
and venial thing that may be pardoned without 
an atonement ; and then they discover no need 
of a Divine Redeemer to " make a propitia- 
tion " for the sinner. When a man is thor- 
oughly convicted of his own guiltiness before 
God, he is seldom disturbed with any Socinian 



THE DECEITFULNESS OF SIN. 31 

doubts as to the necessity of grasping Christ 
Jesus as his only Saviour. Sin appears to 
him so abominable an outrage against the 
holy and loving God, that he can understand 
why a Redeemer is indispensable, and why he 
should accept the all - sufficient One whom 
the gospel offers. In fact, this matter of 
estimating sin rightly lies at the dividing-spot 
between truth and error, with myriads of 
persons. This is the starting-point toward 
Calvary and heaven; or it is the "stum- 
bling-point," whence they precipitate them- 
selves downward toward perdition. 

After all, what is sin? It is a transgres- 
sion of the law of God, and it proceeds from 
the heart. It lies not only in evil perform- 
ances, but in evil purposes. If sin is com- 
mitted against God, what does God himself 
say about it ] He pronounces it in his Word 
to be "exceeding sinful," — "the abominable 
thing that he hates." He compares it to a 
loathsome leprosy. He declares that the 
" wages of sin is deathP He declares that 
even the " evil thoughts " which proceed from 



32 THOUGHT-HIVES 

the heart " defile a man," and that nothing 
.that defileth shall enter into the kingdom of 
heaven. Many passages in God's Word flash 
red with holy wrath against sin as the stu- 
pendous crime against the government of 
Jehovah. 

Human history is the record of what sin 
has wrought from Eden to this hour. Sin 
gives birth to every real sorrow. Sin mingles 
every cup of temptation. Sin breeds every 
war. Sin blanches every corpse. Sin digs 
every grave. Sin weaves every shroud. Sin 
kindles the fires of future torment. As 
Chalmers has nervously phrased it, " the 
waste and the havoc of centuries that are 
gone, and the waste and havoc of centuries 
yet to come, all reverberate in one awful 
voice, ' Death hath passed upon all men, for 
that all have sinned^ 

The crowning evidence of the exceeding 
enormity of sin is seen on Calvary. What 
reared the cross ? What wove the crown of 
thorns ? What mingled the bitter cup which 
the suffering Jesus prayed " might pass 



THE DECEITFULNESS OF SIN. 33 

from him " ? What slew the Lamb of God 1 
Heaven, earth, and hell, all answer sin. On 
that background of infinite love — the love of 
Him who died for sinners — human guilt 
stands out with a midnight malignity of 
blackness ! 

Impenitent friend ! come up to Calvary, 
and see yourself in the light of that wonder- 
ful scene ! See what sin is doing there, 
what your sin deserves, and what Jesus bore 
there for you, the sinner. Confess there Avhat 
you cannot deny, that you are rejecting Him 
who shed his blood for you. Confess that 
you are making a mock at sin, and treating it 
as a trifle. Confess that you are among 
Christ's crucifiers. And then pretend, if you 
dare, that you are not guilty. If those who 
despise Moses's law perish, " of how much 
sorer punishment will you be thought worthy 
who have trodden under foot the Son of God, 
and have counted the blood of the covenant 
an unholy thing ] " 

That men who are guilty of such a crime 
against the loving Jesus should esteem it a 

2* 



34 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

small and venial matter, is the strongest proof 
of the " deceitfulness of sin." Other argu- 
ments cluster about it ; but we have no space 
to cite them. We might remind you of the 
thousand false promises sin makes, but never 
keeps. It promises happiness, and pays in 
remorse. It smiles and smiles, and " murders 
while it smiles." It whispers '' ye shall not 
surely die," but its wages are death everlast- 
ing. 

We have read of a singular tree that forci- 
bly illustrates the deceitfulness of sin. It is 
called the Judas-tree. The blossoms appear 
before the leaves, and they are of brilliant 
crimson. The flaming beauty of the flowers 
attracts innumerable insects, and the wander- 
ing bee is drawn to it to gather honey. But 
every bee that alights upon the blossoms 
imbibes a fatal opiate, and drops dead from 
among the crimson flowers to the earth ! 
Beneath this enticing tree the earth is strewed 
with the victims of its fatal fascinations. That 
fatal plant that attracts only to destroy is a 
vivid emblem of the deceitfulness and deadli- 



THE DECEITFULNESS OF SIN. 35 

ness of sin. For the poison of sin's bewitch- 
ing flowers there is but one remedy. It is 
found in the " leaves of the tree of life," that 
groweth on Mount Calvary. 



PAYING THE FARE. 



T^HAT was an expensive voyage which 
Jonah made when he " fled from the 
presence of the Lord " and ran away to 
Tarshish. He found a ship just ready to sail, 
and he '•'paid the fare thereof,'' But he 
paid dearly. How much money he paid we 
do not know ; but it was a dead loss, for he 
never got to Tarshish. He paid away his 
credit as a servant of the Lord. He made 
a hard draft on his conscience,, and that is 
always a dear bargain for any man. Nothing 
hurts us like the hurts we give to our con- 
science. 

After Jonah's sinful voyage began, the sec- 
ond part, and the hardest part, of the bill 
came in. For the Almighty sent after him 
the policeman of a mighty gale, which caught 
hold of the vessel and well-nigh shivered it 



PAYING THE FARE. 37 

into wreck. Poor Jonah had not paid his 
fare to the bottom of the sea ; but there is no 
help for him. The frightened crew pitched 
him out into the deep, and but for God's in- 
terposing mercy he might have been devoured 
by the sharks instead of being preserved by 
that " great fish " which was sent to transport 
him safely to the dry land. A dear voyage 
that ! The prophet who ran away from God 
lost his money, lost his time, lost his credit, 
lost the approval of his conscience and of his 
God, and would have lost his life but for a 
miraculous interposition. All this was the 
" fare " which one man paid for sinning. 

But many of our readers may be commit- 
ting the same terrible mistake. For no path 
seems to most people so easy and pleasant to 
travel, as the path of sinful inclination. It is 
what the Bible calls " walking in the way 
of a man's own heart, and in the sight of his 
own eyes."" One man, for example, is entire- 
ly absorbed in making money. When this 
becomes a greedy appetite, the money-lover 
must pay for it with daily anxiety and worry, 



38 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

and he runs the fearful risk of being eaten up 
with covetousness. A greed for wealth grows 
with years. When the rich miser of New 
York tottered out into the street at fourscore, 
and a friend asked him how he felt, the fee- 
ble old miser replied eagerly, " I feel better to- 
day : stocks are up" Ah ! what a fare that 
old millionnaire had to pay for travelling far- 
ther and faster than others on the road to 
wealth! It shrivelled up his very soul. Gold 
may be a useful servant, but it is a cruel mas 
ter. It is not easy to own it without its own- 
ing us. Where one man makes it a rich 
blessing to others, thousands make it the ruin 
of their souls. Love of money drew Lot to 
the fertile valley of Sodom, and he " paid the 
fare thereof " in the destruction of his family. 
Love of money made Gehazi a knave : he 
" paid the fare " in an incurable leprosy. 
Love of money was one of two sins for which 
Judas paid with the suicide's rope, and ever- 
lasting infamy. No man can make money 
safely and wisely, unless he holds his earn- 
ings as a trust from God. What would it 



PAYING THE FARE. 39 

profit you to win the wealth of an empire, 
if you should pay for it the price of your 
undying soul ? " What shall a man give in 
exchange for his soul 1 " 

Into no road do young persons press more 
eagerly than the road to sensual indulgence. 
No turnpike is more travelled, and none ex- 
acts a more terrible " toll." He who travels 
it must " pay the fare " thereof. The licen- 
tious man pays it in shame and self-loathing, 
in remorse and " rottenness of the bones." 
No young maiden can take these hot coals in- 
to her bosom without being fearfully burned. 
The beautiful but ill-fated girl from New 
Jersey, whose tragical end once awakened 
such a universal thrill of horror, may have 
taken only one false step at first. But how 
far that led ! It requires but one step to go 
down Niagara. She paid dearly for yielding 
to temptation ; for the end of it was death. 
Hundreds of young men are pressing in every 
night to houses of wanton pleasure, bent only 
on enjoyment. But over the door of every 
house of infamy the finger of inspiration has 



40 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

written, " This house is the way to hell going 
down to the chambers of death." 

All along the seductive pathways of self- 
hidulgence God places his toll-gates of retri- 
bution. I sometimes pass in the streets a 
wretched man who often needs the help of 
a policeman to convey him to his desolated 
home. He was once rich and respected. 
Poor victim of the bottle, he is " paying the 
toll" on the devil's turnpike. The heartless 
dramsellers, who furnish him the poison for 
guilty gain, will have to pay theirs when they 
reach the judgment-bar of God ! 

We cannot stop to recount all the penalties 
which men and women have to pay for sin- 
ning. The costliest thing in the world is sin. 
It costs purity of conscience, and costs the 
favor of God. It will cost at the last the loss 
of heaven. The sin of grieving the Holy 
Ghost has cost many a one everlasting per- 
dition. 

" Show me the better way, — show me the 
safe way," exclaim some of my readers who 
are alarmed at their own course of sin, and 



PAYING THE FARE. 41 

who really desire to live a better life. " Show 
me the way, and tell me what is the fare there- 
of.'^'' Friend, salvation is free on God's side; 
but on yoivr side it must be won by repent- 
ance and faith. As far as Christ's precious 
atonement is concerned, 

*' Nothing, either great or small. 

Remains for you ta. do ; 

Jesus died and paid it all — 

All the debt you owe ! " 

But the road to heaven, which the crucified 
Jesus has opened to you, can only be entered 
by your abandoning of your sins, and follow- 
ing him in faith and self-denial. " Except a 
man be born again, he cannot see the king- 
dom of God." " Except a man take up his 
cross and follow Christ, he cannot be his dis- 
ciple." Friend, this "fare" you must "pay" 
to enter heaven. Are you willing? 



TO JESUS — AT ONCE. 



A T a certain prayer-meeting a friend of 
ours arose, and gave the narrative of 
his first year's experience as a Christian. He 
had tried the religion of Jesus for himself; 
and the more he followed the Saviour, the 
more of delight he found in the service. If 
those who sneer at practical religion would 
only seek it for themselves, and make a fair 
trial of it, their lips would be sealed to scoffs, 
and only opened in grateful praise. I never 
heard of a sincere Christian who pronounced 
Christianity an imposture or a failure. Have 
you 1 

Our friend told us of his conversion. It 
was very sudden, yet none the less genuine for 
that. No conversion could be more sudden 
than that of Saul of Tarsus ; but the jailer's 
at Philippi, and the eunuch's on the road to 



TO JESUS — AT once! 43 

Gaza, seem to have been quite as much so. 
In fact, the Bible descriptions of regeneration 
are generally alike in two particulars : there 
is a powerful drawing of the soul by the Holy 
Spirit, and there is an immediate turning from 
sin to the Divine Redeemer. It was so with 
my friend. He told us that he was at church 
on a certain Sabbath evening, and the com- 
mand of Christ to Andrew, '^ follow me," came 
into his mind with prodigious power. He at 
once resolved to follow Jesus, and ever since 
that time has been an earnest, working Chris- 
tian. He had no protracted season of distress 
before he was willing to accept the Saviour. 
But he commenced the practical duties of the 
Christian life al once, and sought to " do the 
work of to-day, with to-day's light, and help 
from the Lord." 

This was a very brief and business-like 
statement of a great religious revolution in a 
human soul. It furnishes a model for every 
unconverted sinner, with whom the Spirit of 
God is striving. That loving Spirit may now 
be striving with you, my reader. If you have 



44 • THOUGHT-HIVES. 

felt, or do feel, an inward compunction over 
your life of sin, and a yearning after a better 
life, then is the Divine Spirit at work upon 
your conscience. Do not wait for the Spirit : 
he is already with you. Yield to him ; pray 
for his deeper power and renewing grace. Do 
not wait for a more vivid sense of guilt : men 
find out more of their own wickedness after 
they have come to Jesus than they ever 
dreamed of before. Do not wait for more 
feeling of any description. If you had fallen 
from a ferry-boat into yonder river, with its 
floating ice, would you wait to feel any colder 
before you seized the rope flung to you from 
the vessel's deck ] 

Christ has Avaited long enough — too long 
— for you already. Accept him at once ! 
When the leper came to him for healing, the 
Master bade him " go shew himself to the 
priest," and report himself cured. The sufl'er- 
ing creature did not stop to count his loath- 
some " scabs," or to pull ofl" a single '-' scale " 
from his frightful face. He asked no ques- 
tions either, but set ofl" at once as directed ; 



TO JESUS A.T ONCE. 45 

and we read that " as he went he was healed.' 
The path of obedience was the path of his 
salvation. When Christ found Andrew and 
James and John on the lake-shore of Galilee, 
he said to them, " Follow me." They obeyed 
the authoritative call, and straightway fol- 
lowed him. He did not come twice after 
them, nor did he need to speak twice to them. 
They forsook their nets, their homes, their 
kindred, and entered at once upon a career of 
self-denying toil, which gradually grew into 
the mightiest mission for God and humanity 
that was ever intrusted to mortal hands and 
hearts. Just imagine that those men had said 
no, instead of yes. 

But they did not even sit down to weep 
over their sins, or stop to chaffer with the 
Saviour about the profits of the trade they 
were abandoning. The gripe of that com- 
mand, " Follow me," was like the gripe of a 
hand of steel clothed in velvet: it was soft, 
but strong. They rose up, quit their nets, 
and set off immediately on a march of toil 
and humiliation, which led to martyrdom on 



46 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

earth, and to a crown of unfading glory in the 
presence of God and the holy angels. 

You, too, must forsake your " net." It is 
your favorite sin. Perhaps many a sin ; but 
often a single besetting sin is a " net " that en- 
tangles a soul in its meshes, and unless that 
net is forsaken the soul cannot follow the 
Master. What is your net ? God knows ; 
and so do you. Perhaps others have seen 
your hindrance in a sparkling glass which 
fashion or appetite keeps on your table. 
Break that glass, or it may break your heart 
in the world of woe. We have seen more 
awakened sinners drawn back to impenitence 
through the stress of sensual temptation than 
by any other device of the devil. The decan- 
ter, the card-table, and the play-house are 
damning more souls to-day than all the in- 
fidelity on the globe. 

Perhaps your " net " is a complicity with dis- 
honest dealing. You may be making money 
against the protest of conscience. Perhaps 
you are held back by fear of your associates ; 
you seek to live on good terms with sinners, 



TO JESUS AT ONCE. 47 

and to die on good terms with God. This 
cannot be done. He who takes up no cross 
shall wear no crown. But suppose that some 
irreligious friend does stare at you, or sneer ; 
it may be that some other one may be startled 
out of his thoughtlessness by your fearless 
standing up for Jesus, and you may save a 
soul unawares. Do right, and leave con- 
sequences to God. 

We cannot specify all the "nets "of fa- 
vorite sins, or indulged cavils and doubts, 
which our thousands of readers may be cling- 
ing to ; no matter what the hindrance, so that 
it keeps you from Christ. A man may be 
crushed by an avalanche, or poisoned by an 
atom of strychnine : each one takes life ! And 
the sin that keeps you from Jesus takes your 
life for all eternity. 

The only true repentance is an abandon- 
ment of known sin. The only true faith is 
the entire yielding of the soul to Jesus for 
salvation. The two make up evangelical con- 
version. And sincere coming to Jesus em- 
braces the two. This vital step may be 



48 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

attended with poignant distress of mind, or it 
may not. This will depend on your tempera- 
ment and on the methods of the Holy Spirit's 
work. Do not be anxious about the degree 
of your distress. Tears do not save : Christ 
does. Wait for nothing. Wait for no one. 
Just begin to serve Jesus in the first duty that 
comes to your hand. Just refuse to do the 
first wrong thing to which you are tempted. 
Do this in prayer for divine help. You will 
get no help and no comfort while you remain 
with your " nets : " hasten to Jesus, and at 
once ! 



"SIN NO MORE!" 



/^^HEIST did not excuse her sin. He did 
not defend or palliate it when he re- 
fused to decide that she should be stoned to 
death on the spot ; especially by such a gang 
of guilty sharpers as the scribes and Pharisees 
who had dragged her into his presence. He 
set before the already convicted adulteress the 
one clear, practical duty, — reformation. This 
displayed the highest wisdom and the highest 
love. The woman had wandered aw^ay from 
the right ; now let her come back to it. She 
had sinned agninst the purity of her woman- 
hood ; now let her stop her evil courses, and 
sin no more. 

My object in this chapter is to press upon 
every unconverted person this one precise 
duty, — reformation. These are times of revi- 
val in many of our congregations, and many 



50 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

are inquiring, "What shall I do to be saved]" 
Come to Jesus, is, of course, the first answer 
to this vital question. But can an awakened 
sinner come to Jesus with any hope of being 
forgiven and renewed while he is wickedly 
clinging to his besetting sins ? No ! Repent- 
ance is as essential as faith in order to salva- 
tion. Repentance is not merely sorrow for 
past sins : it is abandonment of present sins. 
It is the abandonment of our own specific 
sins. 

This wretched woman of the story had 
been guilty of a distinct transgression. She 
had trodden one dark and damnable path un- 
til it brought her up against the holy sin- 
hating Son of God. He does not crush her 
with curses. He just points out to her the 
other path, — the better path, the brighter 
path of reformation. " Go, and sin no more." 
Quit this life of sin. Our Lord did not teach 
any visionary doctrine of " perfectionism." 
He did not command her to become a fault- 
less angel ; but he did command her to be- 
come a better woman. As she had stained 



" SIN NO MORE !" 51 

her soul and her life by abominable practices, 
the all-wise Jesus exhorts her to abandon 
them. This was to be the proof of her re- 
pentance ; this her guide to a better life. 

Before my unconverted reader I hold up 
these inspiring, hope-kindling words, — faith 
in Jesus and reformation. Your conscience 
condemns you. The Spirit of God is striving 
with you. You often say to yourself, "Would 
that I were a better man, or a better woman ! 
I am not fit to die. I am not fit to live. I 
am guilty before God." Your past is irrepar- 
able. You cannot live that over again. It is 
gone, with all its guilty record, into the 
" books of remembrance." But you can save 
your future ; you can save the present. 
There is a door of hope set before you by the 
loving Jesus. It is the door of repentance 
and reformation. 

Stop and change ! Don't excuse yourself 
by saying that a change of heart requiries 
God's aid. It does ; but he off'ers and prom- 
ises his aid, and he ofi'ers it to you as a free 
agent. You are an intelligent, accountable 



52 THOUGHT-HrVES. 

being, with the power of choice. " Stop sin- 
ning ! " said Christ to the aduheress. Stop 
sinning ! " What sin 1 " you inquire, per- 
haps. We answer : Your sin, — the sin you 
committed yesterday, and the sin you are 
committing to-day. 

You may be owing an old debt, or indulg- 
ing an old and wicked enmity. Go at once 
and pay the one, and settle the other by ask- 
ing forgiveness. The refusal to pay a just 
debt which you can pay, or to love one whom 
you maliciously hate, are sins against God ; 
and while you harbor tb em, your repentance 
cannot be genuine. You never will be saved 
" hy works ; " but let me tell you most plainly 
that you never will be saved without works. 
You must " keep the commandments," or the 
love of Christ cannot be within you. Christ's 
command to you is to forsake your sins. 

Perhaps you are profane. Then stop 
swearing. You have been "damning" long 
enough. God may take you at your word, 
and damn you for ever. Wash your soiled 
lips with prayer, and swear no more. 



53 



More than one whom I know is kept from 
Christ by too much familiarity with the de- 
canter. He loves his glass. The moment a 
man begins to love the stimulating cup, and 
to hanker for it, he is in danger. I can name 
scores of my acquaintances whose chief hin- 
drance is their slavery to the bottle. Is that 
your hindrance? Then you must give up 
your bottle, or give up your soul. Implore 
God's help, and sin no more. The Saviour is 
testing you, just as he tested the young ruler 
whom he commanded to sell his possessions 
and " come and follow me." If you are un- 
willing to deny yourself in the indulgence of a 
favorite vice, you cannot be Christ's disciple. 

The atoning Saviour has opened a door of 
salvation to the guilty. There is room for 
every sincere seeker. But there is no room 
for the sinner's sins. There is no room for 
self-righteousness. Those " filthy rags " must 
be flung away if you would enter. There is 
no room for covetousness. If you love gold 
more than Jesus, you cannot enter. Every 
sinful practice is contraband at the gate. 



54 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

You cannot smuggle in a besetting sin. Here 
probably is the core of your difficulty. Many 
an awakened sinner has failed to be converted 
simply because he clung to some one or more 
favorite sins which God commanded him to 
give up. 

One of my neighbors went home lately con- 
victed of the sin of ingratitude to God. He 
had led a prayerless, thankless life. He went 
down on his knees and asked forgiveness. 
He began to pray with his family. He con- 
fessed his sins at his household altar. He 
not only made his Christian wife happy, but 
has become a happy man himself. God has 
given him a new heart ; but the man asked 
for it. 

Friend, if you are still living a prayerless, 
godless life, you are in fearful peril. You 
are presuming on God's forbearance. Your 
Maker has "let you alone" for a long time, 
though a barren fig- tree. You are sinning 
against wondrous love. You are sinning 
against a noonday light of truth. You are 
sinning against the Eedeemer's compassion. 



" SIN NO MORE ! '* 55 

You are trampling his cross under foot. This 
sin of hardened impenitence will cost you your 
soul. Go straightway to the forgiving Jesus, 
whose " blood cleanseth from all sin," and 
determine that with his help you will sin no 
more. 



HYMNS OF HOMxiGE TO CHEIST. 



npHERE are many popular hymns whose 
key-note is an ascription of heart-loyalty 
to Jesus Christ. Among these, two are es- 
pecial favorites ; yet so little is generally 
known of their authorship and their history 
that we propose to write what we have been 
able to gather in regard to them. 

The first of these hymns is one which 
always stirs us like the sound of a trumpet. 
Everybody knows the words, and everybody 
is familiar with the tune of " Coronation," to 
which it is wedded. If a man like George 
H. Stuart or D. L. Moody were called upon 
to lead a vast miscellaneous meeting of Chris- 
tians, probably the first hymn which they 
would choose to " fire the heart" of the meet- 
ing would be those well-known lines, - — 



HYMNS OF HOMAGE TO CHRIST. 57 

"All hail the power of Jesus' name ! 
Let angels prostrate fall ; 
Bring forth the royal diadem, 
And crown Him Lord of all ! '* 

As published in our xlmerican collections, 
this joyous and inspiring hymn contains only 
■five verses. But the original version — now 
preserved in the British Museum — contains 
eight stanzas, of which the last one is as 
follows : — 

" Let every tribe and every tongue, 
That bound creation's call, 
Now shout in universal song, 
And crown Him Lord of all ! " 

Of this stanza our ordinary version retains 
but one line. The whole hymn has been 
most ruthlessly tinkered by the tribe of hymn- 
menders ; but, not content with patching the 
sacred song itself, they have plundered it of 
its rightful authorship. It was often attrib- 
uted to Kowland Hill, with whom it was a 
great favorite. In most of our books it is 
attributed to one " Duncan." But the real 
author was the Rev, Edward Perronet, a 
zealous minister of Jesus Christ in the ancient 

3* 



58 THOUGHT-HIYES. 

county of Kent. He was a man of keen wit 
and indomitable courage, and broke loose from 
the English Established Church to become 
a travelling companion of Charles Wesley. 
He afterwards became the pastor of one of 
Lady Huntington's chapels in Canterbury. 
He must have been a kindred spirit with 
joyous-hearted Wesley, and we can imagine 
them as singing their way through southern 
England like old " Great Heart" and " Stand- 
fast " in Bunyan's allegory. Perronet pub- 
lished a small volume of " Occasional Verses, 
Moral and Social," in 1785, which is preserved 
in the British Museum. He wrote many 
verses, but only one great hymn. That was 
enough: the man did not live in vain who 
taught Christ's Church her grandest coro- 
nation-song in honor of her King. When 
and where Perronet was born we do not 
know; but he died with holy ecstasy in 1792, 
and went up to join in the coronation services 
of heaven. His last words were, " Glory to 
God in the height of His divinity ! Glory 
to God in the depth of His humanity ! Glory 



HYMNS OF HOMAGE TO CHRIST. 59 

to God in His all-sufficiency, and into His 
hands I commit my spirit." He left no 
written biography on earth ; but when his 
soul entered the realms of bliss there must 
have been a " new song " of peculiar sweet- 
ness and rapture heard before the throne of 
God and of the Lamb. 

With the song of homage to Jesus, left to 
us by Edward Perronet, there is worthy to be 
coupled another one, which is pitched to the 
same joyful key. It, too, was composed by a 
hymnist quite unknown to fame Very few 
persons, as they see the name of " Medley " 
attached to the list of authors in their hymn- 
books, are fully certain whether the word de- 
scribes a man or a musical " medley " of some 
kind. Let it be known, then, that Samuel 
Medley was a man, — every inch of him, — 
and a rather extraordinary man too in his way. 
Born somewhere in England during the year 
1738, he became a midshipman in the British 
navy, and fought bravely in several battles 
under some of old William Pitt's stout ad- 
mirals. He was converted by reading one of 



60 



THOUGHT-HIYES. 



Isaac Watts's discourses. He then quit the 
sea and entered the army of Christ's ministers, 
serving in the Baptist " corps " with remark- 
able zeal and success. Medley preached in 
Liverpool for many years, attracting troops of 
sailors to his chapel. Sometimes he went out 
on mission-tours through the land, and once 
he was preaching in a barn on the text, " Cast 
down, but not destroyed." In the midst of 
the discourse his temporary pulpit of rough 
boards gave way and precipitated him upon 
the barn-floor. The lively sailor leaped up, 
and in a Beecher-ish vein of humor exclaimed, 
" Well, friends, you see we too are cast down, 
but not destroyed." 

While in Liverpool the Spirit moved him 
to compose over two hundred hymns, which 
he published first on slips of paper for circula- 
tion. Many of them were sold for a ha'penny 
by a poor blind girl who sat on the church- 
steps, and thus earned her daily bread. But 
that poor sightless child had some rare treas- 
ures in her pile of "broadsheets.'' For 
among them was that glowing lyric, — 



HYMNS OF HOMAGE TO CHRIST. 61 

** Oh could I speak the matchless worth, 
Oh could I sound the glories forth, 

That in my Saviour shine, — 
I'd soar and touch the heavenly strings, 
And vie with Gabriel while he sings 

In notes almost divine ! " 

In that collection was also the hymn, " Dear- 
est of names, my Lord and King." But the 
choicest treasure in the poor blind girl's pile 
of handbills was the one on which was 
printed that dear old hymn, which has been 
sung in ten thousand revival meetings, — 

*' Awake, my soul, in joyful lays, 
And sing thy great Redeemer's praise ; 
He justly claims a song from me ; 
His loving kindness, oh, how free ! " 

In this jubilant song there were originally 
nine verses : the last one has been dropped 
out of our collections, and I therefore insert it 
here : — 

** There with their golden harps I'll join, 
And with their anthems mingle mine. 
And loudly sound on every chord 
The loving kindness of my Lord." 

^sthetically considered, this is not a re- 
markable bit of poetry ; but, for a popular 



62 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

outburst of loyal love to the Redeemer, it is 
unsurpassed. The common people sing it 
gladly. It will be chanted through tears of 
joy when many a massive epic is forgotten. 
It bears the odors of paradise. 

Samuel Medley, like Perronet, went home 
to glory, shouting. On his dying-bed he 
seemed to be watching the points of a com- 
pass, and kept saying, " One point more ; two 
points more ; now only one point more." 
Then he shouted out, " How sweet will be the 
port after the storm ! Dying is sweet work ! 
Home, home, hallelujah ! glory, home^ home ! '' 
And so the glorious old mariner passed in, 
with all sails set, to the ''• desired haven." 



GIVING UP — FOU CHRIST. 



A FRIEND requested me to name a few- 
simple and practical rules for Christian 
self-denial. " It is not what a man takes up, 
but what he gives up, that makes him rich 
towards God." Now what ought a follower 
of Jesus to give up for his Master's sake 1 

1. Of course every man who would become 
a Christ's man must renounce everj^ thing 
that God's Word and a healthy conscience set 
down as wrong. All sins are " contraband " 
at the gateway of entrance to the Christian 
life. The sentinel at the gate challenges us 
with the command, — " Lay down that sin ! " 
" Cease to do evil " comes before " Learn to 
do well." 

2. We must give up whatever by its direct 
influence tends to injure ourselves or others. 
Here comes in the law of brotherly love, — the 



64 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

law of avoiding the appearance of evil, and of 
renouncing whatever causes our brother to 
stumble. This is the generally accepted basis 
for the duty of total abstinence from intoxi- 
cating drinks. They endanger my neighbor 

A , and they are destroying my brother 

B ; therefore I ought to avoid setting the 

example of their use before A and 

B . Total abstinence then rests on the 

double ground of self-preservation, and of self- 
denial for the sake of others. We have a 
very poor opinion of the piety of any man 
who will not give up his bottle of wine or any 
other self-indulgence for the sake of taking 
a stumbling-block out of a fellow-creature's 
path. 

This second principle of abandoning every 
practice which may mislead others is the one 
to be applied by a Christian whenever he is 
solicited to play whist, or to attend the opera, 
the circus, or the dancing-party. You may 
not become a gambler, but cards make gam- 
blers of others. You may not be corrupted 
by the opera- stage, or the promiscuous dance ; 



GIVING UP FOR CHRIST. ' 65 

but their influence has damaged thousands of 
your fellow Christians. The safe side of all 
questionable amusements is the outside, 

3. Give up whatever tends to pamper the 
passions, or to kindle unholy desires. Paul's 
noble determination to "keep his body un- 
der" implies that there was something or 
other in Paul's fleshly nature which ought to 
be kept under. It is also true of about every 
Christian, that somewhere in his nature lies a 
weak point, a besetting tendency to sin ; and 
right there must be applied the check-rein of 
self-denial. Even eminent Christians have 
had to wage constant battle with sexual pas- 
sions. Others have had sore conflict with 
irritable, violent tempers. Old Dr. Alexander 
used to say to us students, " Young breth- 
ren, envy is a besetting sin with the minis- 
try : you must keep that abominable spirit un- 
der." When a servant of Christ is willing to 
take a back seat, or to yield the pre-eminence 
to others, he is making a surrender which is 
well pleasing to his meek and lowly Master. 
One of the hardest things to many a Christian 

3* 



66 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

is to serve his Saviour as a " private," when 
his pride tells him that he ought to wear a 
" shoulder-strap " in Christ's army. 

4. Another very hard thing for most per- 
sons to give up is to give up having their own 
way. But the very essence of true spiritual 
obedience lies just here. It is right here that 
self-sufficiency and vanity and waywardness 
and obstinacy are to be met. Here they must 
be sacrificed to that demand of the Master, 
that He shall rule and not we. Only a truly 
self-denying, self-abnegating disciple can adopt 
those words which the holy-minded Dr. Skin- 
ner lined off to his brethren just before his 
death : — 

** My Jesus, as tJiou wilt ! 
Oh, may thy will be mine ! 
Into thy hand of love 
I would my all resign ! " 

5. The last rule of giving up which we 
have room for is that time, ease, and money 
must all be held tributary to Christ. In these 
days of stylish equipage and social extrava- 
gance, how few Christians are willing to give 



GIVING UP FOR CHRIST. 67 

up to Jesus the key to their purses and bank- 
safes ! Too many go through the solemn 
farce of writing " Holiness to the Lord " on 
their property, and then using it for their own 
gratification. Every servant of Christ should 
systematically bestow at least one tenth of his 
annual income in Christian charities, and as 
much more as he or she can afford without 
robbing others. What child of God was ever 
bankrupted by benevolence ? 

It is harder to give up ease than money. 
Personal exertion to save sinners, to do disa- 
greeable duties, and to "keep at it" in up-hill 
work, is one of the severest tests of self- 
denying godliness. Blessed is that disciple 
who can say, "^It is my meat to do my Mas- 
ter's will, and to finish the work which he 
gave me to do." He goes on giving up — 
and giving up for Christ until his dying hour ; 
and then Avhen he gets to heaven he will find 
that what he '' lost for Christ's sake " has 
been saving up for him, to be his everlasting 
treasure in glory. 



THE GEACE THAT PINCHES. 



HTHE prevailing sin of the day is self-indul- 
gence. It is eating like a canker into 
the life of many of our churches. It leaves 
Christ's ministers to address empty pews on 
unpleasant Sabbaths. It robs Christ's treasury 
to keep up a showy " turn out." If it hangs 
a bough of profession over on the c^ttrcA- side 
of the dividing wall, yet its roots are deep 
down in the soil of the world. It is often 
ready to deny Christ — but seldom ready to 
deny itself. 

The most unpopular doctrine to preach in 
these times, and the hardest one to practise, 
is the old-fashioned apostolic doctrine of self- 
denial. This is the grace that pinches. The 
daily battle of Christian principle is with that 
artful, subtle, greedy sinner, self And the 



THE GRACE THAT PINCHES. 69 

% 

highest victory of our religion is to follow 
Jesus over the rugged path of self-denial. 
This is mainly to be done in the little every- 
day acts of life. The great occasions that 
demand sublime sacrifice are few and rare. 

The Christian who suppresses a jest or a 
witticism because it would burlesque, his re- 
ligion practises self-denial. When he speaks 
out a bold but unpopular word for the right, — 
in " fashionable society," — he is really taking 
up a cross for his Master. All genuine acts 
of philanthropy are born of the noble princi- 
ple to deny self, and to honor Christ in the 
persons of those for whom Christ suffered. 

The mission-school teacher, who sallies off 
in the driving storm to carry his gospel-loaf to 
a group of hungry children, is an example of 
this. " Why should I sit by the warm fire on 
my sofa to-day ? Christ will look for me 
among my class." The seamstress who drops 
her hard-earned dollar into the missionary 
collection is really enthroning her Saviour 
above herself. Those educated Northern girls 
who went South to teach ragged freedraen 



70 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

their alphabet and the Bible are truer ladies 
in God's sight than all the self-pampering 
belles, who air their fineries on Fifth Avenue. 

We cannot emphasize too strongly this 
grace which pinches selfishness. I care not 
how orthodox is a man's creed, or how elo- 
quent may be his prayers in public, if he has 
never learned to say " 7^o " to the demands of 
fashion, and pride, and luxury, he is but a 
sorry specimen of the Christ-man. 

What a touching lesson of self-denial we 
behold in every crutch and in every " empty 
sleeve " of those heroes in blue whom we yet 
meet on all our public thoroughfares ! These 
noble men counted not their limbs dear, if 
only the nation might be saved, and freedom 
might triumph. Yet there are thousands of 
professed Christians who are unwilling to 
deny themselves the paltry gratification of a 
glass of wine or ale in order to help the senti- 
ment of total abstinence to become popular, 
or to aid in saving the " weak brother who 
stumbleth." They know they are setting a 
bad example when they use or off'er the 



THE GRACE THAT PINCHES. 71 

poison-cup. They know that they are throw- 
ing their influence on the side of the tipplers. 
Yet because it is " genteel " to partake of 
wine or punch, they do not hesitate to " take 
a drop " in the social circle. Perhaps they 
thrust the decanter before some weak, tempt- 
able friend, to his everlasting damnation ! If 
the drunkard shall " not inherit the kingdom 
of heaven," what right has a professed Chris- 
tian to ask to be admitted to heaven if he has 
helped to make a drunkard of his neighbor? 
I fear that God will say to the " pious " 
tempter, — " That man's blood will I require 
at thy hands." Paul acted with a truer spirit 
of Christ when he uttered the noble precept, 
" It is good not to drink wine whereby my 
brother stumbleth." 

Brethren ! Let us pray for the grace that 
pinches. If it "goes against the grain," all 
the better. If it wounds our pride, so much 
the better. If it makes us look " singular," 
let us remember that we are commanded to be 
a "peculiar people," and not to look like the 
votaries of Satan. Brave old Dr. Wisner — 



72 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

who went home the other day to glory — was 
once the most singular man in the village of 
Ithaca. He dared to stand alone. He was 
ever ready to testify on the Lord's side, on 
which he had planted himself so valiantly. 

Oh for a new baptism of self-denial ! Oh 
for a new training in that lesson which our 
dying Master taught us, — which apostles and 
martyrs echoed from the prison cells, and 
kindled stakes, — the sublime lesson that — 

"N'ot to ourselves alone, 
Not to the flesh weUl live, 
Not to the world henceforth shall we 
Our strength and being give ! 

No longer be our life 

A selfish thing, or vain : 

For us, even here, to live be Christ ; 

For us to die is gain ! " 



THE RICH SOUL. 



" Rich toward God." — Luke xii. 21. 

" \A r^AT is he worth ? " Used in its full 
^ ' significance, this would be the most 
pregnant, the most just, and the most com- 
prehensive question that could be propounded 
in regard to any immortal being. When asked 
in the ordinary way, it simply means. How 
large are his estates ? how much gold has he 
in his bank-vaults ] And the ordinary answer 
would be, "The man is worth twenty thousand, 
or a hundred thousand dollars." Then we can 
only say that he will have twenty thousand or 
a hundred thousand dollars to account for at 
the bar of God. Then will he be either the 
happy reaper of immortal joys when every 
well-employed coin shall nod like a golden ear 
in the full sheaf of his heavenly harvest ; or 
else he must meet thousands of scorpions to 



74 THOUGHT-HIYES. 

torment his soul through his dreary eternity 
of despair. Is a man worth uncounted thou- 
sands in bullion or bank stock, in real estate 
or rare commodities 1 Then he ought to be 
worth a vast deal to the community in which 
he lives, and to the Church of Jesus Christ. 
He ought to be worth — bread to the hungry, 
schooliog to the ignorant, Bibles to the unevan- 
gelized, and mission schools to the heathen 
children at our doors. He ought to be rich 
towards God in the large and liberal employ- 
ment of his high stewardship. 

For not every rich man is " rich toward 
God." Else our Saviour would not have 
uttered the parable from which our text is 
taken. He probably had in his mind just 
such a person as I could easily find in a ten 
minutes' walk through this commercial city, — 
a self-complacent Croesus, shrivelled in soul, 
but corpulent in purse ; a man in whom 
avarice has devoured all the other appetites 
of the heart, as voracious sharks gulp down 
whole shoals of smaller fish ; one who . could 
call up his immortal part, and address it in 



THE RICH SOUL. 75 

the same spirit in which he would talk to a 
silken-haired pet spaniel, " Now, my little 
soul, thou hast much goods laid up for thy- 
self ! " Not for others, observe. Not for God. 
But for thyself. " Now eat, drink, and be 
merry. Satiate thyself. Feast thy eyes on 
full barns, full board, full bags, full bank- 
vaults. Gloat over them. They are all 
thine. Never will I be so weak-headed as 
to be cheated out of them, — never so weak- 
hearted as to squander them on foolish chari- 
ties." " Thou fool ! " thunders the voice of 
God above him, — " thou fool, this night thy 
soul shall be required of thee : then whose 
shall those things be which thou hast pro- 
vided { " 

This terrible satire of divine indignation is 
not expended upon the subject of this parable, 
because he was rich in earthly goods. The 
Bible has no controversy with men of wealth. 
It never discourages the acquisition of gold, as 
long as the heart owns the gold, and the gold 
does not own the heart. The anathema of the 
parable is not against riches, but against self- 



76 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

ishness, the mammon-worship which de- 
thrones Jehovah. And by as much as this 
selfishness is the selfishness of wealth, by just 
so much is it the more abominable and hateful. 
For when God makes an individual worth tens 
of thousands, and he makes himself worth less 
than nothing to his Creator and his fellow-men, 
God will curse such selfishness with the most 
crushing condemnation. Even at the bar of 
final judgment, one test-question will be, in 
regard to you and to me, and to every man, 
" How much is he worth, — worth to his 
Saviour and the Saviour's cause ? How much 
has he been worth to his fellow-men 1 " In 
that great day of decision I should like to 
stand up as the pastor of a rich church, — 
exceeding rich in faith and good works. If 
so, you must begin now, with a holy covetous- 
nesSj to lay up spiritual and eternal treasures. 
Let me point out to you a few simple rules 
for becoming " rich toward God." 

I. And, first, let me remind you that every 
soul on earth is horn poor. There is no 



THE RICH SOUL. 77 

exemption from this hard lot. Whether in 
royal nurseries, where the heir to the throne 
is well-nigh smothered in down, or in the 
pauper's thatched hovel, every immortal soul 
begins its existence poor. Sin spares not a 
solitary child of Adam. Sin writes its moral 
poverty on every occupant of every cradle. 
x\s the emptiness of the purse makes one 
poor financially, so the entire emptiness of 
the heart as to all holy emotions, holy desires, 
and purposes, constitutes our native moral 
poverty. Who would go to the ragged urchin 
in the Industrial School for a loan ] Yet it 
would be quite as wise to expect a depraved 
heart to give forth what it has never yet 
possessed, — one pure, holy emotion. 

How then can any soul become rich toward 
God ? He does not inherit spiritual wealth, 
but rather the entire and most pitiable want 
of it. He inherits guilt. He inherits evil 
passions. Noble faculties and capacities are 
his inheritance, but not one particle of native 
grace comes with them. The more gifted in 
intellect, the more dangerous will he become, 



78 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

if those mental powers are wholly uncon- 
trolled by the law of God. Without grace, 
he is a guilty creature on earth and a lost 
creature through eternity. 

He must begin then on that grace, — on 
God's free gift to him through Christ. Just 
as a liberal father establishes his son in com- 
mercial business by furnishing him a certain 
sum as his capital, so (if we may thus speak) 
our heavenly Father gives the new heart as a 
Christian capital. This is the starting-point. 
As soon as converting grace enters the soul its 
condition changes. At that moment, by that 
act, the seeking sinner becomes the forgiven, 
the accepted, the adopted heir of God. And 
the religious principle then implanted by the 
Holy Ghost is the spiritual capital with which 
the new-made heir begins his stewardship. 
Sometimes this capital is furnished in child- 
hood or in early youth, and then a long 
" threescore and ten " witnesses the growth 
of that soul into vast possessions. Some- 
times a person begins late in life ; and then, 
like those who mistake their secular callings 



THE RICH SOUL. 79 

and only get hold of the right occupation at 
forty, he seldom becomes a spiritual million- 
naire. In fact, he does not get far beyond his 
original capital. It is hard work to make a 
'' first-class '' Christian out of an aged sinner. 
Old habits of sin have become inveterate. 
The best soil of the heart has been worn 
out in growing enormous crops of tares. 
There is a want of spring and pliability in an 
old man's temperament; he does not readily 
adapt himself to new positions and new duties. 
As the merchants who have accumulated the 
most gigantic fortunes are commonly those 
who began to be rich before thirty, so the 
richest Christians are usually to be found 
among the converts of the Bible-class room 
and the Sabbath school. Begin young, my 
friends, if you would attain to great riches. 
Those who are no longer young may still be 
saved if they will come heartily to Jesus ; 
but I doubt if they often do much towards 
saving others. God reserves the highest re- 
ward to those who enlist the earliest, and 
serve the hardest and the longest. 



80 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

II. In the second place, let me remind you 
that he who would amass large wealth must 
not »it down content with his original capital. 
He makes investments. He plants his gold in 
a well-tilled farm, or sends it seaward in strong- 
bottomed ships, or sets it to spinning new for- 
tunes in the factory. He must venture what 
he has, if he would gain more. 

Even so in the spiritual world that professor 
is but a lean, poverty-stricken starveling, who 
never gets beyond the infantile condition in 
which he stood for the first time at Christ's 
table. Such professors there be in every 
church. Their single talent is hidden in a 
napkin, -^ a very small napkin. What God 
bestowed upon them at the time of conversion 
is all that they have now : if there has been 
any change, it has been rather a reduction 
than a growth. Such began small, — they 
continue smaller. They never were any thing 
but rivulets, trickling with slender thread of 
water among the barren stones, at the mercy 
of every August drought, and well-nigh drunk 
up by every thirsty noonday sun. Year after 



THE RICH SOUL. 81 

year they trickle — trickle — trickle — until 
death dries them up, and nobody misses them. 
They watered nothing ; they refreshed nobody, 
and blessed no living thing. Earth is little the 
poorer for losing them ; heaven scarcely the 
richer for gaining them. 

But a growing believer's course is like yon- 
der river's, — its birth-place some secluded 
fountain under the mossy rock. Cool and 
clear, it steers its modest path whithersoever 
God shall lead it, laughing evermore and leap- 
ing to its own silvery music. For long we lose 
sight of it. Then we meet it again, no longer 
a wayside brook, but a deep-voiced river beat- 
ing against its banks, — swelling up to kiss 
the marge of green meadows, — winding 
around the highland's base, — rolling on its 
majestic march until it spreads out into a 
hospitable bay, on whose placid bosom fleets 
ride at anchor, and in whose azure depths the 
banners of all nations are mirrored. Such is 
the onflow of a rich soul, — every day widen- 
ing in influence, every day deepening in 

experience, every day running purer and 

4* 



82 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

purer. To human eyes such believers may 
move more slowly as old age draws on. But 
it is because the volume of their graces is 
increasing, and they are nearing the ocean of 
eternity. How these lives gladden the regions 
through which they pass ! How they mirror 
back the glory of Christ's gracious handiwork ! 
How they bear up human hopes, and spread 
themselves out like broad, patient rivers, to 
carry all burthens that are launched on their 
bosoms ! 

Yet such a glorious Christian career, so 
beautiful in its daily flow, and so beneficent 
in its results, is only the original grace of 
conversion employed at compound interest. 
This mighty river of holy influence is only 
the original fountain magnified. Behold the 
virtue of accumulation! To this the apostle 
exhorted when he urged his brethren to 
" grow in grace." To accumulate soul-wealth 
for God is the purport of that apostolic injunc- 
tion, — " Add to your faith, virtue ; and to vir- 
tue, knowledge ; and to knowledge, temper- 
ance ; and to temperance, patience ; and to 



THE RICH SOUL. 83 

patience, godliness ; and to godliness, broth- 
erly kindness ; and to brotherly kindness, char- 
ity." Brethren, I repeat and re-enforce the 
exhortation : Grow in grace. Expand. Ab- 
sorb every down-pouring of heavenly influ- 
ence. Catch every descending drop of spiritual 
blessing. Open your hearts to every stream of 
Bible knowledge. Be filled with the fulness 
of Christ. So shall ye be neither empty nor 
unfruitful, but " always abounding in the work 
of the liOrd." 

III. This leads me, in the third place, to 
speak of the methods of spiritual wealth- 
getting. How shall a believer become " rich 
toward God " ? We answer that the rules for 
securing success in secular afl'airs will apply to 
the advancement of the soul in grace. The 
real currency in commerce is metallic, the 
broad earth over. And the gold and silver 
which make up the basis of personal wealth 
are the product of the mines ; each glittering 
coin the result of the miner's hard toil with 
sieve or with mattock. Now, the currency of 



84 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

God's kingdom is truth ; and the Bible is the 
ore-bed. To every one of you this mine is 
open. He must be a blind or a careless miner 
vrho does not come out of this inexhaustible 
ore-bed with some new and massive " nugget" 
as the result of every hour's research. Do you 
consider every bank solvent, whose vaults are 
the hiding-place of solid bullion, amply suffi- 
cient to meet its liabilities ] So is he a sol- 
vent Christian whose secret soul is stored with 
gospel principles, all coined and stamped for 
daily use. Nor should any Christian ask 
credit any further than he can fully redeem 
his promises and professions by the " ready 
money" of consistent godly conduct. 

To make a rich believer, something more 
than faith is needed. More, too, than scrip- 
tural knowledge. There must be also — ex- 
perience. Ah, this is a costly possession ! 
Nothing is bought so dear ; and yet it is worth 
aril it costs us. This is a part of the soul's 
wealth that no one can purchase for us ; no 
dearest friend can make it over to us as a gift. 
We must " go and buy for ourselves," and ex- 
orbitant is the price we often pay for it. 



THE RICH SOUL. 85 

There are sometimes rare and beautiful 
wares brought into the market that are in- 
voiced at almost fabulous rates. Ignorant 
people wonder why they are priced so high. 
The simple reason is that they cost so much 
to procure. That luxurious article labelled 
£200 was procured by the adventurous hunter, 
who, at the hazard of his neck, brought down 
the wild mountain-goat, out of whose glossy 
hair the fabric was wrought. Yonder pearl 
that flashes on the brow of the bride is pre- 
cious, because it was rescued from the great 
deep at the risk of the pearl-fisher's life, as 
he was lifted into the boat half dead, with the 
blood gushing from his nostrils. Yonder 
ermine, flung so carelessly over the proud 
beauty's shoulder, cost terrible battles with 
Polar ic? and hurricane. All choicest things 
are reckoned the dearest. So is it, too, in 
Heaven's inventories. I'he universe of God 
has never witnessed aught to be reckoned in 
comparison with the redemption of a guilty 
world. That mighty ransom no such con- 
temptible things as silver and gold could pro- 



S6 THOUGHT- HIVES. 

cure. Only by one price could the Church of 
God be redeemed from hell, and that the 
precious blood of the Lamb, — the Lamb with- 
out blemish or spot, — the Lamb slain from the 
foundation of the world. 

And so is it that the best part of a Christian 
character is that which was procured at the 
sorest cost. Patience is a beautiful trait, but 
it is not worn oftenest by those who walk on 
life's sunny side in silver slippers. It is the 
product of dark nights of tempest, and of 
those days of adversity whose high noon is but 
a midnight. For " the trial of your faith 
worketh patience." Purity of soul is like 
purity in gold, where the hottest fires turn out 
the most refined and precious metals from the 
crucible. Joseph found his crucible in an 
Egyptian prison ; but he came out thence with 
the soul of a virgin. Purity of character is 
often bought in this wicked city by the bitter 
price of a crust of bread eaten with a good 
conscience in an attic ; when a guilty conniv- 
ance would have been rewarded with French 
satins and a harlot's sumptuous couch. 



THE RICH SOUL. 87 

The knowledge of our own besetting sins is 
a knowledge we all crave. We imagine that 
we would be willing to pay liberally for the in- 
sight into our own hearts which shall reveal all 
our weak points, not knowing how soon some 
unexpected emergency might develop some 
foible or some vice of character hitherto un- 
suspected. But men have paid dearly for such 
discoveries. David paid for his self-knowledge 
with the life of a darling child and a broken 
heart ; Hezekiah paid for his by the weari- 
some sufferings of a sick- chamber ; Peter for 
his by the bitter agonies in Pilate's garden. 
But the discoveries were worth all they cost. 
Among God's jewels, there is no brilliant 
which flashes with such lustre as the tear of 
true penitence. Yet God only knoweth what 
heart-pressure, as in a vice, — what wringings 
and rendings of soul, what crushings of pride, 
and wrestlings of agony, — may have been 
needful in order to press out that jewel-drop 
upon the cheek of the stubborn sufferer ! We 
have sometimes met with a person in social 
circles, who possessed a peculiar gentleness 



88 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

and docility of character. As we came to 
know her better, we were amazed and charmed 
by her calm self-poise, and her heroic submis- 
siveness to God under sudden shocks of calam- 
ity. We admired so beautiful a character. 
We envied its possessor. We coveted such a 
spirit for ourselves. Ah, we little knew at 
what fearful price of severe chastisements 
and bitter disappointments, of hopes desolated 
and expectations crossed, of faith put to the 
rack, and patience burned bright in seven- 
times-heated furnaces, all that meek loveli- 
ness of character had been gained ! So true 
is it, dear brethren, that he is the most rich 
toward God who is ready to toil the hardest, 
and to bear the most to gain his acquisition. 

To be truly rich, all these graces of pa- 
tience and purity and meekness and long- 
suffering are indispensable. Cost what they 
will, they must be attained. By prayer and 
by practice they must be sought after, and so 
sought as to secure them. He is a meagre, 
crude, unfinished, unripe, and unimpressive 
Christian who does not possess those peculiar 



THE RICH SOUL. 89 

graces which are only to be won by suffering 
and trial. Do not draw back from the posses- 
sion of any spiritual treasure, I beseech you, 
from the dread of paying dearly for it. The 
worldling withholds no toil, no sacrifices that 
are needful to secure his coveted gains or 
honors. The merchant begrudges not the 
evenings spent away from his own fireside, if 
those extra hours over his ledgers will give 
but an extra dividend of profits. The sculptor 
counts not the long months- wasted which see 
him with hammer and chisel pursuing the im- 
prisoned figure which his keen eye detects 
within the block of Parian marble. And the 
children of light must carry into their service 
of Christ the same untiring ardor, the same 
zeal, and the same self-denial by which the 
children of the world win wealth and honor 
and emoluments. Oh for a holy enthusiasm ! 
— a holy covetousness to become rich toward 
God! 

IV. The fourth and last principle that I 
shall present is, that whoever would become 



90 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

rich in spiritual treasure must give away 
bountifully. This is the truest paradox in 
Christian economy. He that saves for self 
only loses : he that loses for Christ's sake is 
sure to save. Would you grow rich toward 
God? Then learn to give. God loveth a 
cheerful giver. Nor do I limit this rule to 
the donation of the purse. The mere gift of 
gold is but a part of Christian benevolence, 
though by no means an unimportant part. I 
often wish that I were the possessor of the 
wealth of Henry Thornton or Amos Law- 
rence, provided that I had" always, too, the 
wealth of heart-love to do good that those 
princely men had. But a rich soul can be 
always giving ; as the noonday sun overflows 
his golden urn of ceaseless radiance, and is yet 
none the poorer in warmth and glory when a 
whole universe has been lighted. 

We must freely give of every thing that we 
have freely received from the Lord. If we 
have the heart to pray, let us give of our 
prayers. No legacy that a rich father could 
have left me would compare in value with my 



THE RICH SOUL. 91 

widowed mother's prayers for me at the mercy- 
seat. You that have acquired the wisdom 
which age and experience confer can give 
those counsels which are apples of gold in 
baskets of silver to the young, the inexperi- 
enced, and the unfortunate. Give your per- 
sonal labors, too, for Christ. Many a rich 
man seeks to compound with his conscience 
by bestowing bank-checks in lieu of his own 
presence in the mission school, the prayer- 
meetings, or the abodes of suffering. O man 
of wealth! God gave thee that very leisure 
thou enjoy est in order to do the very work 
of charity which thy poorer, hard-toiling 
neighbor has no time to perform. Those that 
have not money, or counsel, or charitable deeds 
to bestow, can at least afford a godly example. 
And so a godly life may be, from first to last, 
all expenditure ; just as the temple lamps con- 
sumed themselves away in giving light. But 
the life and the heart grow the fuller, the 
brighter, the stronger, the more they expend. 
What were rich-souled Christians given to the 
world for but to be reservoirs of blessings ? 



92 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

Happy is the man who can bring the very 
atmosphere of heaven with him whenever he 
approaches us I — who acts upon our spirits 
as the May breezes act upon the first shoots 
of the tulip and the violet ! He is a bountiful 
giver. He confers on us light; he beams 
goodness into our souls ; he teaches us pa- 
tience ; he showers on us brotherly kindness ; 
he illustrates for us faith ; he exhibits the true 
beauty of meekness ; he sheds hope by his 
very presence, and his unflinching bravery 
has often been an inspiration of valor to our 
failing hearts. Next to Christ himself, there 
is no blessing to the community like a Christ- 
like Christian. 

My dear reader, I covet for you the best 
gifts. Ask of God who giveth liberally that 
ye all be rich, — rich in faith, rich in good 
works, rich in revenues of joy, rich in heart 
holiness and the love of Jesus. And then, 
although your frame be wrapped in coarse 
raiment, your soul shall be enfolded in the 
shining garniture of Christ's righteousness. 
Though your dwelling-place be so lowly. 



THE RICH SOUL. 93 

yet your heaven-seeking affection may be at 
home in the celestial courts before the throne 
of God and of the Lamb. Although your 
purse be scanty, your heart will be a palace 
whose chambers are filled with " all pleasant 
and all precious riches." So shall you be 
made meet to be partakers of the inheritance 
of the saints in light. 



THE HONEST DISCIPLE. 



OOME characters in the Bible are painted 
with a single stroke. Enoch, the stanch 
old patriarch who walked with God ; Caleb 
the faithful, " who followed the Lord /w%; 
Dorcas, who made the needle sacred; Onesi- 
phorus, the model gentleman, who oft refreshed 
Paul and " was not ashamed of his chain ; " 
Demas, the deserter from duty, — all these and 
many others owe their peculiar immortality to 
a mere line- or two of Holy Writ. 

One of these striking characters of whom 
we would like to know more is Nathanael, of 
Cana. The main facts that we gain about him 
are that he dwelt in the village where Christ 
turned pure water into 'pure wine ; and it is 
possible that he was the bridegroom at that 
famous wedding. His name in Hebrew has 
the same significance with Theodore in the 



THE HONEST DISCIPLE. 95 

Greek, — " the Gift of God." Perhaps his 
mother laid his name on the little head of her 
new-born darling in especial gratitude for a 
child whose coming she regarded as a special 
mercy. Would that we all so recognized God's 
hand in the bestowal of children that we could 
write beside each name in the family-record, 
''A gift of God to my heart, and therefore not 
to be given by me to the Devil ! " 

Every good man is God's boon to society ; 
but this Nathanael's especial trait was down- 
right sincerity. He was an honest man. When 
his friend PhiHp invites him to come and follow 
Jesus, he rather bluntly inquires, " Can any good 
thing come out of Nazareth ? " Not merely did 
he mean by this that the Nazarenes were a dis- 
reputable set ; but he was too close a student of 
the Jewish Scriptures not to know that the 
Messiah was predicted to make his appear- 
ance in Bethlehem of Judea (not in Galilee). 
Philip's curt and sensible reply is, " Come and 
see." This is the conclusive argument, after 
all. The only satisfactory test of Christianity 
is the test of personal examination and per- 



96 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

sonal experiment. Come and see Jesus for 
yourself! Come and try him for yourself. 
There are some truths which, like good medi- 
cines, must be taken in order to be trusted, as 
well as trusted in order to be taken. Of such 
truths, the pre-eminent is a divine, incarnate 
Eedeemer. Friend, if you want to know 
Christ's ineffable beauty, come and see him ; 
if you want to know his pardoning love and 
sustaining power, come and obey him. Do 
his will, if you would know of his doctrine. 
I never heard of an infidel who had fairly 
tried the experiment of living out the religion 
of Christ Jesus. 

Philip's request was obeyed ; and when 
Jesus saw Nathanael coming to him, he said 
of him, " Behold an Israelite indeed in whom is 
no guile ! " It is as if he had said, Behold a man 
of faith and of frank sincerity. Christ does 
not pronounce Nathanael to be absolutely sin- 
less. And if Nathanael had so pretended, he 
would not have been guileless ; for if we say 
we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the 
truth is not in us. Nathanael was an honest 



THE HONEST DISCIPLE. 97 

Israelite, a man of faith, a man of prayer, and 
above all a man above shams and false pre- 
tences. Even when Jesus pronounced him 
" without guile," he did not begin to stammer 
out any self-depreciating cant : " Lord, you 
give me too much credit ; I don't deserve to 
be called an honest man. I am only a miser- 
able sinner." Nathanael left all such lying 
cant to those Pharisees of modern prayer- 
meetings who pretend to be worse than they 
are, in order to get credit for humility. I 
believe that there are as many lies told in self- 
depreciation as there are in self-exaggeration. 
When a Christian knows whom he has be- 
lieved, and knows that he is sincerely striving 
to follow Jesus, even in an imperfect fashion, 
he has no moral right to apply to himself, in 
penitential prayer, the same w^ords which de- 
scribe a sceptic, a felon, or a hypocrite. Some 
people have a very sneaking way of feeding 
their self-conceit on phrases of profound hu- 
mility. Other people — and really sincere 
Christians — introduce many phrases of self- 
abasement out of mere form ; just as I have 

5 



98 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

overheard giddy, frivolous girls and careless 
men of pleasure mumble that solemn litany, 
" Lord, have mercy on us, miserable sinners ! " 
Had I told them the same thing to their faces, 
they would have grown red with wrath and 
resented it as an insult. 

Our holy Redeemer had an intense abhor- 
rence of hypocrisy. He denounced sancti- 
moniousness with a severity that startles us 
ill One so gentle and compassionate. On no 
class of sinners did he thunder such terrific 
rebukes as on " the whited sepulchres," who 
looked fair on the outside, but within were full 
of rottenness. Christ emphasized the neces- 
sity of consistency between the faith of the 
heart and the practice of the life. " By their 
fruits ye shall know them." And where the 
renewed heart is a sweet fountain, his Word 
teaches us that it should not send forth bitter 
waters. The honest accordance of the heart 
that loves Christ and the life that honors 
Christ is what the Bible means by " godly sin- 
cerity." Those memorable words of Eobertson 
of Brighton will bear to be quoted again. 



THE HONEST DISCIPLE. 99 

" The first lesson in religion is, he true ; the 
second lesson is, he true ; and the third lesson 
still is, he true.'" I cannot believe that growth 
in grace is possible to the man or woman 
whose daily habit is to confess a guilt they do 
not feel, and to profess a love for Jesus which 
they do not experience. 

The glory of Nathanael is that he was an 
honest disciple. For he was a disciple, and 
one of the chosen twelve. His call to dis- 
cipleship was similar to that of Andrew and 
Peter. He obeyed the call of Jesus, and did 
not go back to his " fig-tree," under w^hich the 
All-seeing Eye had discovered him. In the 
books of Matthew, Mark, and Luke, this 
honest brother is mentioned by his surname 
or second name, Bartholomew, His w^hole 
name seems to have been Nathanael Bar- 
tholomew, which last word signifies " the son 
of Tholmai." John, however, calls him only 
by his beautiful " Christian name," the " Gift 
of God." 

Philip and Nathanael Bartholomew are 
always spoken of together. They seemed 



100 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

to have grown to each other like twins. After 
Christ's resurrection, Nathanael met his mas- 
ter on the beach of Galilee ; and his hand had 
hold of the net when the huge draught of 
fishes came up to the shore. After the Ascen- 
sion, Nathanael attended the prayer-meeting in 
the " upper room." From that hour we never 
hear of him again. Tradition says that he was 
crucified in Armenia. But, wherever he died, 
we never hear that he forfeited that golden 
name which Jesus bound about his brow: 
" The Israelite indeed in whom is no guile.'' 



THE FATHER OF ENGLISH HYMNS. 



A BOUT the year 1675, a worthy Deacon 
Watts who kept a Puritan boarding- 
school in Southampton, England, was locked 
up in prison for being an incorrigible Dissenter. 
It was during the reign of the second Stuart, 
which Macaulay has well styled " the reign 
of the strumpets." Before the door of the 
good deacon's cell, his wife used to come and 
sit while she sang for the comfort of her 
imprisoned husband, and for the quieting of 
her eldest born baby, which she held in her 
arms. The little Isaac must have been draw- 
ing in some inspirations of his mother's music 
with his mother's milk. He was a poet from 
the cradle. His earliest thoughts he shaped 
into rhyme. 

His mother offered a copper prize to the 
children in her husband's school for the best 



102 



THOUGHT-HIYES. 



bit of poetry they could produce ; and Master 
Isaac, then in his eighth year, won the prize 
by the following saucy couplet : — 

** I write not for a farthing, but to try 
How I your farthing writers can outvie." 

At fifteen the precocious lad had made 
choice of the " better part," and became a 
follower of Jesus. He worshipped at the 
Independent Church in Southampton, of 
which his father was a deacon ; but the 
preaching edified him more than the service 
of song. The congregation were endeavor- 
ing to praise God every Sabbath in the 
clumsy, jaw-breaking measures of Sternhold 
and Hopkins, or the jolting rhymes of Nahum 
Tate. To the tuneful ear of the young stu- 
dent this saw-filing process in the name of 
sacred psalmody was utterly beyond endurance. 
One Sabbath morning (in 1702), after service, 
he vented his contempt for such ill-conditioned 
doggerel, and the only reply he received was, 
"Give us something better, then, young man!" 
He accepted the taunting challenge^ went 



THE FATHER OF ENGLISH HYMNS. 103 

home, and produced before sunset a hymn 
which was lined off, and sung at the evening 
service. It began with the verse — 

" Behold the glories of the Lamb, 
Amidst his Father's throne : 
Prepare new honors for his name, 
And songs before unknown." 

The author was just eighteen years old; 
but on that Sabbath our English Hymnology 
was horn^ and young Isaac Watts was its 
father. Well might Montgomery say that he 
" was almost the inventor of hymns in our 
language, so greatly did he improve on his 
now forgotten predecessors in English sacred 
song." Richard Baxter had written twenty 
years before his beautiful — 

*' Lord, it belongs not to my care. 
Whether I die or live." 

But the single seed-corn did not sprout into 
a hymnologic harvest. Watts had struck the 
Meribah-rock of melody, and the waters con- 
tinued to gush forth. In the year 1707 he 
gave to the churches an original volume, 



104 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

entitled " Hymns and Spiritual Songs," and 
for the copyright he received the munificent 
sum of fifty dollars ! If kept to this day, it 
would have yielded to its owners a solid mil- 
lion. The book of hymns was soon followed 
by another entitled " The Psalms of David 
imitated in the language of tbe New Testa- 
ment." In this second volume appeared the 
famous " Old Hundredth," which began with 
the words — 

"Nations, attend before His throne 
With solemn fear, with sacred joy." 

John Wesley altered these lines to the 
grander ones, — 

•' Before Jehovah's awful throne, 
Ye nations, bow with sacred joy ! " 

This stands as the solitary instance in which 
hymn-tinkering has improved upon the origi-^ 
nal. The man must indeed rise early in the 
morning who can improve upon Isaac Watts. 

That he ever composed any one sacred song 
which can take rank beside Toplady's " Eock 
of Ages" or Charles Wesley's " Jesus, Lover 



THE FATHER OF ENGLISH HYMNS. 105 

of my soul," we do not claim. Those two, like 
the morning and the evening star, ride bright- 
est in the firmament. But Isaac Watts wrote 
more of the great hymns of our mother tongue 
than any other man. No lay of Calvary has 
ever yet approached in pathetic grandeur that 
offering which Watts laid at his Eedeemer's 
feet : — 

** When I survey the wondrous Cross 
On which the Prince of Glory died, 
My richest gain I count but loss, 
And pour contempt on all my pride." 

I can imagine that the apostle Paul may 
have already thanked Isaac Watts in para- 
dise for having taught the church how to sing 
his own immortal declaration, '' God forbid that 
I should glory save in the cross of our Lord 
Jesus Christ ! " No funeral hymns either have 
equalled those which issued from Watts's pen- 
sive spirit. How many of us can recall the first 
scenes of burial which we witnessed in our 
early country homes ! We seem to see again 
the rural neighbors gathered on the grass 
before the door, while the sun shimmered 

5* 



106 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

through the trees upon the group around 
the open coffin. We seem to hear again, 
to the sweet plaintive strains of old " China," 
those soul-melting words : — 

•• Why should we tremble to convey 
This body to the tomb ? 
There the dear form of Jesus lay, 
And left a long perfume." 

It is an evidence of wondrous versatility 
of genius that while Watts composed lines 
which Daniel Webster murmured on his dying- 
bed (" Show pity, Lord! O Lord, forgive!"), 
he also wrote the most perfect child-hymns 
in our language. Nothing in our modern 
Sabbath-school collections quite equals the 
old dog-eared primer which contained, " How 
doth the little busy bee," and " Whene'er I 
take my walks abroad." Bradbury was good ; 
but the vintage of Watts, nearly tw^o hundred 
years old, is better still. The only child-hymn 
of our day, which might have come from 
Watts's pen, is that gem of sweet simplicity, — 

*• Jesus loves me, — this I know ; 
For the Bible tells me so : 
Little ones to him belong ; 
I am weak, but he is strong." 



THE FATHER OF ENGLISH HYMNS. 107 

The author of " Divine and Moral Songs 
for Children " was himself childless. He lived 
a bachelor under the roof of Sir Thomas 
Abney, in London, whom he went to visit, 
and lingered there as a welcome guest for 
thirty-five years. In 1748 he fell asleep in 
Jesus, leaving as his beautiful posterity seven 
hundred white- winged hymns. They are fly- 
ing under the whole heaven. His body rests 
in Bunhill Fields, the Westminster Abbey of 
the glorious Puritans. Close by the gate, and 
not far from Bunyan's grave, is a plain tomb, 
which bears the name of Isaac Watts, the 
father of the English hymn. 



BEAINS, AND HOW TO USE THEM. 

(A Talk with Young Men.) 



L?OE, what has the Creator given us our 
■*- brains ? Why are affluent mental gifts 
bestowed upon some men ? And how may 
even moderate abilities be made most effective 
for the promotion of truth and the well-being 
of humanity? These are questions that con- 
cern young men, especially those who are 
placed on the highest planes of intellectual 
culture and influence. All men are concerned 
in these questions ; for a great man is, per- 
haps, the greatest fact in the history of an 
age. No more decisive influence can be 
brought to bear upon any age, or any com- 
munity, than the employment of its highest 
intellect for truth or for error, — for God and 
the right, or for the Devil's wrong. Intellect 
ennobled, purified, heaven-directed, is the 



BRAINS, AND HOW TO USE THEM. 109 

universal power to build up. Intellect per- 
verted, corrupted, sin-directed, is the most 
terrible of agencies to pull down and de- 
stroy. "How shall I use my intellect'?" is 
the most vital moral problem that can come 
before the court of your conscience. 

Some men hold that talents are given for 
the same purpose that wealth is often in- 
herited, — for mere personal luxury. There 
be intellectual millionn aires who decorate their 
mind, as a palace, for pride to walk through. 
Its superb picture-galleries, whose walls a 
creative imagination has clothed with visions 
of entrancing beauty ; its saloons of receptive- 
ness, in which stately thoughts do come 
and go ; its costly libraries, where memory 
stores up its massive accumulation, shelf 
on shelf; its statue-lined corridors and halls, 
— are but the splendid realm which self has 
adorned by the " might of its own power, and 
for the honor of its own majesty." Scarcely a 
living being is the wiser, the better, the hap- 
pier, for such mental monopolists. They stand 
in the midst of humanity as the marble man- 



110 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

sion of a selfish Duke might stand in the 
midst of a poverty-cursed and squalid peasant- 
ry. While the nabob is gorging at his rose- 
wood table, or lounging before his Murillos, 
the poor Lazarus without is begging crumbs 
for the lean and hungry brats, such as Murillo 
portrayed upon his canvas. One man sur- 
feits : the others starve. There is enough for 
all, if it were distributed. Distribution is 
Heaven's law, whether the treasures be in 
the lordly mansion, or in the lordly mind. 
For God never gave to man fine intellectual 
powers — vigorous understanding, strong- 
winged imagination, cunning invention, or 
soul-rousing eloquence — for the owner's sole 
use and benefit. Talent is trust. Let no man 
covet it, unless there come with it wisdom 
from above to insure it a right direction. 

One student uses his brain — as he uses his 
midnight lamp — merely to illuminate the page 
before his single eye. Another man makes his 
intellect a meridian sun! How bountifully 
does the full urn of noonday overflow ! Not 
only on Alpine peaks, and " heart of the 



BRAIiSS, AND HOW TO USE THEM. Ill 

Andes," kindled into pyramids of fire, but 
down into modest vales the sunlight falls, 
warming the honeysuckle o'er the cottage 
doorway, lifting the tiny wheat-blade from its 
earthly tomb ; and, even when some solitary 
daisy is shaded beneath an overgrown tree, the 
generous sun wheels round and round, until 
before nightfall the daisy too is reached, and 
fills her little cup with golden light. Such full- 
orbed intellects there be. They turn midnight 
into noon. Upon the most elevated minds and 
the most favored classes their rays may fall the 
earliest ; but at length the lowliest valleys of 
human life are warmed in the celestial influ- 
ence. So rose the tent-maker of Tarsus upon 
a benighted age. Amid the gloom of the 
sixth century shone out Augustine ; amid 
the prejudice of tlie fifteenth beamed Chris- 
topher Columbus. The sixteenth century 
came in with clouds and darkness on its 
awful front. God said, " Let there be light," 
and Luther was ! When his sun departed 
with its trail of glory, the moral heavens 
beamed, in tui'n, with Lord Bacon, Milton, 



112 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

Isaac Newton, Leibnitz, Pascal, Edwards, 
Chalmers, — each an overflowing orb of truth. 

Have you never observed the descriptive 
phrase which Inspiration employs to set forth 
the moral benefactors of mankind? The 
phrase employed is the happy one of " water- 
ing," conveying the noble thought that it is 
the office of great intellect both to descend 
and to distribute. 

In the torrid lands of the Orient, it was the 
wont of monarchs to construct vast reservoirs 
on the mountain-sides. These were filled by 
the rains of heaven. When the summer-heats 
had drank the gardens and the vineyards dry, 
the w^aters of the reservoir were conducted 
down, and forthwith the wilted vine lifted its 
head again, and the drooping fig-tree smiled. 
Green grew the pomegranate at the water's 
cool touch ; and golden grew the barley-har- 
vest. So, on the heights of influence, God 
replenishes intellectual reservoirs. He fills 
them from on high. He fills them to irrigate 
the masses below them. The truths that ac- 
cumulate there will stagnate if selfishness lock 



BRAINS, AND HOW TO USE THEM. 113 

up the sluice-gates. But let it be your ambi- 
tion to accumulate for others ; freely receiv- 
ing, freely give. Let not the curse that rests 
on him who hedges round his well in season 
of drought, or on him who locks up his 
granary in time of famine, rest on you, for 
intellectual stinginess : the meanest of misers 
is he who hoards a truth. 

The sources of intellectual power are vari- 
ous. The range of employment for your 
mental attainments will be as various also as 
your several pursuits in life, — far too wide 
for the reach of a single hour's discussion. 
But there are two sources of mental power 
and usefulness, which are opened to every 
young man who has a brain to think or a 
heart to feel. Learning and Eloquence — 
getting the truth and giving the truth — are 
the two most attainable possessions for every 
healthy mind. For while the Creator has 
bestowed great analytical acumen as a gift 
comparatively rare ; while the imagination, 
which can 

" Glance from heaven to earth, 
From earth to heaven," 



114 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

belongs to a favored few; while fertility of 
invention is a monopoly of genius, — yet nearly 
every healthy intellect can acquire truth and 
impart it. Young brethren, every affirmative 
man in your class (who is not smitten with 
congenital barrenness) may become measur- 
ably learned and measurably eloquent. For 
what is learning but storing the interior man 
through the five conduits of sight, touch, smell, 
taste, and hearing, and so storing it that every 
precious parcel shall be at arm's reach in the 
instant of need ? This depends on industry, 
not Genius. (Unless you make Genius to be 
the power of doing with prodigious rapidity 
what other minds eff^ect by slow and steady 
strain, — as the driving-wheels of a locomo- 
tive achieve the same number of revolutions 
in a minute that the wheel of a baggage- 
wagon accomplishes in an hour.) 

Within the last few years England and 
America have laid in their honored graves 
two men, who were prodigies of acquire- 
ment unsurpassed. One of them lies by the 
side of Addison in Westminster Abbey. The 



BRAINS, AND HOW TO USE THEM. 115 

other — a namesake of Addison — lies by the 
side of President Edwards in the Westminster 
Abbey of America* One of them, when at 
school, was known among his school-fellows 
as "- Macanlay, the Omniscient." From boy- 
hood he was a terrible toiler. He saw every 
thing; he heard every thing; he read every 
thing ; he remembered every thing. It is 
even said that, if every copy of Milton's Para- 
dise Lost had been committed to the flames, 
the whole of the matchless epic could have 
been recovered, line for line, from the tablets 
of Macaulay's memory. That Macaulay had 
genius none will deny ; but his special power 
was the power of acquiring, classifying, and 
presenting vast arrays of truth, and so present- 
ing them as at once to enrich the memory and 
captivate the understanding. He was one of 
the distributing reservoirs of History. He is 
the father and founder of a school of author- 
ship, in which he as yet stands without an 

* The Cemetery at Princeton, N. J., which contains the ashes 
of Jonathan Edwards, Davies, Witherspoon, Dod, Miller, the 
Alexanders, and many other men of sacred renown. 



116 THO U GHT-HI VES. 

equal. Other men have penetrated into pro- 
founder political philosophy. Others have pre- 
served a more rigid impartiality. But no other 
man has combined in himself such power of 
acquisition, and such power of presentation, — 
such exhaustless wealth of knowledge '^ from 
the royal cedar to the hyssop of the wall," — 
such enthusiastic conception of the grand 
and heroic, mingled with such detestation 
of what is sensual, selfish, and devilish in 
human history. In his own fine language 
it may be said of him that, " among the 
eminent men whose bones lie near him in 
the Great Abbey, none has left a more stain- 
less, and scarcely one a more splendid name." 

If Macaulay had no superiors in Britain, he 
certainly had one American rival in powers of 
acquisition and retention. His own attain- 
ments in the domain of letters and of civil 
history were not more remarkable than the 
attainments in sacred literature, in Oriental 
research, and in ecclesiastic history, by Joseph 
Addison Alexander. 

As I pronounce that hallowed name, the 



BRAINS, AND HOW TO USE THEM. 117 

visions of student-days come back before me. 
I seem to see again that form as it once stood 
in the sacred desk ; I seem to hear again those 
plaintive tones as they once melted on the air. 
That square, massive head (which we fancied 
to be like to Napoleon's) rises once more 
before us ; the ruddy glow on the cheek a 
beautiful emblem of the soul-health within. 
From those lips we seem to hear again those 
streams of concinnate exegesis, those bril- 
liant bursts of impassioned vehemence, those 
tides of holy emotion, — all poured forth in a 
voice that sometimes swelled through the 
vestibule to passers in the street, and sometimes 
hushed itself to the plaintive melody of a lute. 
Such a reservoir has not been opened from 
any American pulpit in our generation. No 
man ever saw the bottom of that profound, 
capacious, all-containing, inexhaustible intel- 
lect. No man ever laid a task too heavy on 
that herculean memory. From a single read- 
ing he could commit a w^hole discourse ; from 
a single perusal he rose up master of an intri- 
cate volume, — his mental recreations were 



118 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

other men's arduous toils. A thousand pulpits 
are the richer for the accumulations of that 
one busy and beautiful life, — that career of 
labor and of love. Alas for us, that such a 
life should have ended ! Alas for the be- 
reaved town, the bereaved seminary and 
church, that never can grow reconciled to its 
bereavement ! We go into our libraries, and 
behold two fatal gaps in two favorite depart- 
ments of study ; and we ask ourselves, " Who 
will ever finish yonder magnificent History 
since Macaulay's hand has forgot its cunning 1 
Who will ever carry on those affluent com- 
mentaries since Addison Alexander has passed 
to the loftier knowledge and clearer light of 
the Heavenly w^orld ? " 

Lest any one should be discouraged by the 
presentation of such prodigies of mental ac- 
quisition as the two celebrated examples just 
cited, let me say that they owed their eminence 
and usefulness to herculean industry. Young 
men, choose for your patron-saint Industry. 
Get some starling to cry work — work — 
work — study — study — study. Study every 



BRAINS, AND HOW TO USE THEM. 119 

thing,' but with a bearing on your own line of 
intellectual labor. Concentrate on one point, 
or a few points, '• as a gardener, by severe 
pruning, forces the sap of the tree into two 
or three vigorous limbs, instead of suffering it 
to become a sheaf of spindling twigs." Con- 
centration is the secret of strength. " Stick to 
your brewery," said the great E-othschild to 
Mr. Buxton, " and you will be the first brewer 
of London. Try to be brewer, banker, manu- 
facturer, and merchant, and you will soon be — 
in the gazette." 

" Mr. A often laughs at me," said Pro- 
fessor Henry once in Princeton College Lab- 
oratory, — " often laughs at me, because 1 have 
but one idea. He talks about every thing, 
aims to excel in many things, but I have 
learned that, if I ever make a breach, I must 
play my guns continually upon one point." 

This sober wisdom met its reward. He 
gave his days and nights to physical science. 
From the time when, an obscure youth, he 
studied Silliman's Journal by fire-light, in a 
log cabin, on to the day when English dukes 



120 TIIOUGHT-HIVES. 

and earls rose up to do him respect, he had 
but one aim in life, — to add to the sum of 
human knowledge. He found the earth and 
air full of electricity ; and he found, too, that 
the galvanic current, slow, but steady and con- 
tinuous, was worth a thousand brilliant elec- 
tric flashes. He set to work upon this, with 
might and main. He linked battery to bat- 
tery ; harnessed the subtile fluid into gigantic 
magnets, and made it lift prodigious burdens. 
And when at last, by his untiring toil, a chaos 
of facts was marshalled into the symmetry of 
a science ; when, in obedience to his guidance 
(in common with other co-laborers), the elec- 
tric current mounted the wires as a message- 
bearer round the globe, — then did the Genius 
of Truth crown Joseph Henry with the bene- 
diction, " Thou hast sought me and found me, 
because thou didst search for me with all the 
heart." 

Thus much for the acquisition of knowl- 
edge, which depends upon a busy brain. It is 
the result of concentration and industry in- 
vincible. 



BRAINS, AND HOW TO USE THEM. 121 

Eloquence, on the other hand, which is the 
second source of intellectual power that I am 
commending to you, — eloquence is the golden 
product of an inspired heart. No elaboration 
of rhetoric, no oratorical culture, can pro- 
duce it, which ignores the spontaneous emo- 
tions of an honest, fearless, loving heart. 

Would you rule men from the rostrum, 
from the bar, or from the sacred desk 1 Let 
no devil cheat you out of your conscience ; let 
no callous critic shame you out of your honest 
emotions. 

For what is eloquence but truth in earnest "? 
The mind's best words spoken in the mind's 
best moments. 

When truth gets full possession of a man's 
conscience ; when all his sensibilities are 
aroused and his sympathies in full play ; 
when the soul becomes luminous, until the in- 
terior light and glow blaze out through every 
loop and crevice ; when, from head to foot, 
the whole man becomes the beaming, burning 
impersonation of truth, — then is he honestly, 
naturally, irresistibly eloquent. To this a 



122 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

great nead is not always essential: a great 
heart is, and must be. 

David, wailing over his self-ruined darling 
Absalom ; Paul, pleading before Felix, until the 
guilty man pale-d to the color of his marble 
throne ; Martin Luther, stretching up to the 
full height of his manhood, in those words, 
" Here I stand, I cannot otherwise. God help 
me. Amen ; " Patrick Henry, sounding the 
key-note to Bunker Hill in, " Give me 
liberty, or give me death ! " Whitefield, de- 
picting the perils of a lost soul on the verge 
of the pit, until the plumes on Duchesses' 
head-dresses quivered, and Chesterfield cried 
out, " Good God ! he is gone ! " Kossuth, 
sounding the requiem of his dead nationality ; 
and Alexander Duff, pronouncing his sublime 
farewell to the heathery hills of Scotland, — 
these men were eloquent, not by special in- 
spiration of the head, but by overpowering 
inspiration of the heart. The burning soul 
kindled the lips ; and the baptism of elo- 
quence came in the form of a " fiery tongue." 

The loftier the emotion, observe, the more 



BRAINS, AND HOW TO USE THEM. 123 

impressive the utterance of the orator. The 
same law applies to eloquence that applies to 
hydrostatics. If the jet is to be thrown to a 
great height in the public fountain, the spring 
that feeds the fountain must have a lofty birth- 
place on the mountain-side. He who is false 
to the better instincts of his soul seldom can 
be eloquent. To the limber-tongued politician 
laboring with cunning speech to make the 
worse appear the better side, to the hireling 
pleader who barters justice for a fee, or to the 
hireling priest who sells souls for salary, — 
Nature denies to such that gift which she re- 
serves for the leal and loyal spirit. 

The grandest achievement of eloquence has 
been reached when the orator has received the 
fullest celestial baptism of love, when self 
has become swallowed up in the glory that 
surrounds the cross of Calvary. 

And where should we look for the highest 
realizations of true eloquence, but in the pul- 
pit? Where is there less excuse for tameness, 
for affectation, for heartlessness, for stupidity? 
Where can the strongest intellect find fuller 



124 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

play? For the ambassador of truth has not 
only the loftiest of themes, but his text-book 
is the most perfect of models. In it may be 
found every thing that is most sublime in 
imagery, most melting in pathos, most irresist- 
ible in argument. The minister of Christ 
need not betake himself to the drama of 
Greece, the forum of Rome, or to the mystic 
retreats of German philosophy ; he need not 
study Chatham in the Senate Chamber, or 
Erskine at the bar. He may ever be nurtur- 
ing his soul amid those pages where John 
Milton fed, before those eyes, which had 
*' failed with long watching for liberty and 
law," beheld the gorgeous visions of " Para- 
dise." He may be ever amid the scenes which 
inspired Bunyan to his matchless dream, and 
taught Jeremy Taylor his hearse-like melo- 
dies. The harp of Israel's minstrel is ever in 
his ear ; before his eye moves the magnificent 
panorama of the Apocalypse. He need but 
open his soul to that " oldest choral melody," 
the book of Job ; if it used to inspire Charles 
James Fox for the Parliament-house, why not 



BRAINS, AND HOW TO USE THEM. 125 

himself for the pulpit? Paul is ever at his 
elbow to teach him trenchant argument; 
John, to teach persuasion ; and a heart of steel 
must he have who is not moved to pathos in 
the chamber of heart-stricken David, or under 
the olive-trees of Gethsemane. The Bible is the 
best of models too, for it is always true to 
the life. It reaches up to the loftiest, down 
to the lowliest affairs of existence. The same 
divine pencil that portrayed the scenic splen- 
dors of the Revelations and the awful tragedy 
of Golgotha condescends to etch for us a 
Hebrew mother bending over her cradle of 
rushes, a village- maiden bringing home the 
gleanings of the barley-field, and a penitent 
woman weeping on the Saviour's feet. What 
God has ennobled, who shall dare to call com- 
mon ? What true orator of nature will fear 
to introduce into the pulpit a homely scene or 
a homespun character, a fireside incident or 
a death-bed agony, the familiar episodes of 
the field and the shop, the school room and 
the nursery. He does not lower the dignity 
of the pulpit: he rather imparts to it the 
higher dignity of human nature. 



126 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

Would that the pulpit, which is the most 
potent educator among us, would that every 
pulpit were thoroughly liberated, not only 
from a time-serving expediency that muffles its 
rebuking thunders, but from a contemptible 
petit-maitreism that curbs its free manly ac- 
tivities. 

From the pulpit, the statesman should leam 
the " higher law " of justice and of right ; the 
merchant should learn the golden rule of in- 
tegrity. Before the pulpit the politician 
should breathe an atmosphere of such crystal 
purity that a descent into the iVvernus of our 
ordinary " politics " would be instant suffoca- 
tion. The patriot should find his minister 
more patriotic than himself; the maiden 
should be the purer for his delicacy ; the 
mother should find a Christian culture made 
the easier for his luminous portraiture of the 
child-life's joys and sorrows. His every utter- 
ance should be a fresh inspu'ation to the ar- 
tist, a fresh stimulus to the intellect of the 
scholar. No man should build so high, but 
the pulpit should build above him. Xo reck- 



BRAINS, AND HOW TO USE THEM. 127 

less youth in his wildest aberration of profli- 
gacy should ever reach a pitfall or a precipice 
that had not been mapped out to him before- 
hand in the pulpit. And on life's rough high- 
way no sinning sufferer should faint or fall, or 
be flung into thicket so dense and dark, but 
over him should bend Christ's messenger of 
love, and into his bleeding wounds should 
distil the balm of Heaven's Gospel. 

In all this, is there no scope for the loftiest 
intellect ? 



THE SINS OF THE TONGUE. 



nr^HE gift of speech is a marvellous gift. 
•^ For five whole days of creation's first 
week the Almighty was clothing the new- 
born earth with light and verdure, and cover- 
ing it with the myriads of animal life. But 
it was a voiceless world. At length God 
made man in his own image, with not only a 
soul to appreciate his Creator, but a tongue 
to give expression to his homage, and " as 
the new-formed being gazed around him, the 
silence was broken, and creation thrilled with 
the melody of speech." 

Philosophers tell us that every uttered word 
produces a vibration in the atmosphere ; an 
ingenious theory has therefore been broached 
that these vibrations never entirely cease ! If 
this were true, we should still be moving 



THE SINS OF THE TONGUE. 129 

among the inaudible words of all our pro- 
genitors. This seems fanciful in natural 
philosophy ; but there is a sense in which 
every uttered word lives for ever. It lives 
in its influence on the speaker, in its in- 
fluence on others. Paul's voice echoes still ; 
millions of God's faithful messengers, being 
dead, yet speak ! 

When Latimer was on trial for heresy, he 
heard the scratch of a pen behind the tapes- 
try. In a moment he bethought himself that 
every word he spoke was taken down, and 
he says that he was very careful what words 
he uttered. Behind the veil that hides eter- 
nity is a record-book, in which our every syl- 
lable is taken down. Even the most trivial are 
not forgotten, for the Lord Jesus tells us that 
" every idle word that men shall speak, they 
shall give account thereof in the Day of 
Judgment ! " If our words have an eternity 
of existence, if good words have so potent 
an influence to save, if idle, or profane, or 
poisonous speech work such perennial mis- 
chief, how needful is the perpetual utterance 



130 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

of the pl'ayer, " Set a watch, O Lord, before 
my mouth ; keep the door of my lips ! " 

I. Among the many sms of the tongue are 
idle words, " Avoid foolish talking," says the 
wise apostle, " and let your speech be always 
with grace, seasoned with salt." There is a 
peculiar sin in idle talking when we remem- 
ber that the same expenditure of breath 
might be productive of so much blessing. 
When v/e contemplate a Whitefield in the 
full rush of his resistless oratory, — now 
startling a guilty sinner from his slumber on 
the verge of hell, now leading a bewildered 
wanderer to Christ, now kindling a saint 
into rapture, and now melting a rebel into 
penitence, — we grow indignant at the thought 
that this prerogative of speech should so often 
be spent in silly jests and contemptible frivoli- 
ties. Are time and eternity so lacking in 
themes of importance that we shall spend our 
precious breath in fuming emptiness 1 Surely, 
if we would but reflect how soon our tongues 
will lie silent in the tomb, and how speedily 
the dust will gather upon our lips, we should 



THE SINS OF THE TONGUE. 131 

be awed into more sobriety and purity and 
carefulness of speech. 

Shall we never jest '? Does not a pleasant 
joke sometimes do good like a medicine ? 
Very true. There is more marrow in a wise 
man's jokes than in a fool's solemn inanities. 
But a wise man " sets a watch on his lips " 
even when he utters a pleasantry. Especially, 
he never jests at the wrong time, or about 
sacred things. He never utters puns and 
parodies on the Bible ; for what men have 
once laughed at, they seldom reverence. 
Heartily do I wish that I had never uttered 
a ludicrous application of a Scripture line, 
and had never heard one ; for the profane 
or indecent burlesque will often shoot into 
my mind in the midst of a sermon or a prayer. 
Wit and humor are allowable when controlled 
by good sense and by reverence for God ; but 
when we venture into the sublime domains of 
Revelation, we should put our shoes from off 
our feet, for the ground whereon we stand is 
holy. From my soul I abominate merriment 
in the pulpit Should he court a grin who 



132 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

should be winning souls to God ? When 
an ambassador of Christ descends to make 
sport in the sacred desk, the devil laughs. 

11. Malicious words are cousins in sin to 
idle and profane words. Paul says, " Let all 
bitterness and evil sjpeaking be put away from 
you with all malice," Kind words are the oil 
that lubricates e very-day intercourse. They 
cost little. A phrase of common comfort, 
" that by daily use hath almost lost its sense, 
will fall upon the saddened heart like choicest 
music." We love to meet certain people. 
They always have a kind, cheerful, inspiriting 
word for us. They make us hopeful, and 
heal our heart-aches. Others we instinctively 
shun ; they always have a sly thrust at some- 
body ; they hatch mean suspicions in our 
minds ; they are ever letting out a drop of acid 
on some character or cause that is dear to 
us, and the acid leaves an ugly stain. There 
was an ancient malediction that the tongue 
of the slanderer should be cut out ; if that 
summary process were now enforced, we fear 
that some of our acquaintances might soon 



THE SINS OF THE TONGUE. 133 

lose the " unruly member." A slanderer is 
a public enemy. One reckless tongue is 
enough sometimes to embroil a whole vil- 
lage and to set a church in a flame. " There 
are six things which God hates ; yea, seven 
are an abomination unto him." The seventh 
of the category is " the false witness who 
speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord 
among brethren." 

TIL In treating of the sins of the tongue, 
we must not omit a word in regard to that 
feculent ichor that exudes from some lips in 
the form of obscenity. Out of the abundance 
of the heart the mouth speaketh ; and a fllthy 
imagination, like a fever, comes out on the 
tongue. In companies of youth, in shops 
and counting-houses, in rooms of colleges and 
boarding-schools, in ships' cabins and soldiers' 
tents, a vender of obscenities is a walking 
pestilence. Long years do not obliterate the 
filthy memories ; not even the converting 
grace of God can wholly purify the unclean 
chambers of imagery. 

And then there is profane sioearing. This 



134 THOUGHT-HIYES. 

is the most gratuitous and inexcusable of sins. 
The man who swears turns speech into a 
curse, and before his time rehearses the dia- 
lect of hell. He waits for no bait ; but " bites 
at the devil's bare hook." The shrewd Qua- 
ker s advice to the profane youth, '' Swear 
away, my young friend, till thee gets all that 
bad stuff out of thee^'' points to the real source 
of the vice ; for it is out of an evil heart that 
proceed evil thoughts, false witness, and blas- 
phemies. 

We fear that the purest tongue will need 
much purifying before it is lit to join in the 
celestial praises of God's upper temple. For 
that worship let us attune our voices by cease- 
less prayers, by words of love, by earnest vindi- 
cations of the right, by habitual " speech sea- 
soned with salt " of divine grace. The melody 
of heaven will spring from a harmony of 
hearts; each voice there will bear a part in 
the song of Moses and the Lamb. 



WHO KINDLED THE FIRS'? 



/^^NE article in the Mosaic law, given from 
^-^ heaven, is this : " If fire break out and 
catch in thorns, so that the stacks of corn or 
the standing corn be consumed therew^ith, he 
thai kindled the fire shall surely make restitu- 
tion." This statute had a peculiar necessity 
in such a hot, dry country as Palestine, w^here 
there was a peculiar danger from accidental 
conflagrations. If a man burned over his 
stubble-field, it was necessary, before the dry 
grass was lighted, to see that the wind was in 
the right quarter, and every precaution taken 
that the flames should not kindle upon the 
property of a neighbor. If any farmer 
neglected to take these precautions, and the 
swift-footed flames went careering through 
vineyards, and orchards, and stacks of barley, 



136 THOUGHT-HIVES. * 

then he who kindled the fire was reqmred to 
pay for the damage produced by his own care- 
lessness. 

The sound principle that underlies this law 
is that men must sufi"er for the evil they do 
through thoughtless recklessness, as well as 
for what they do with malicious intent. Men 
are to be held accountable, not only for the 
injuries which they wilfully perpetrate, but 
for the injuries which they occasion to others 
through wanton carelessness or even thought- 
less indifference. The person who set his 
neighbor's barley-stacks on fire was required 
to make restitution, although he did not intend 
to burn him out. The responsibility comes 
back on him who kindled the flames. Let us 
apply the principle of this divine enactment 
to our own times, and point out the moral 
dangers of playing with fire. Perhaps we 
may discover that some very respectable peo- 
ple are often very destructive incendiaries. 

1. If 1 invite a group of young men in my 
house to surround a card-table, I may simply 
design to furnish them an hour's amusement. 



WHO KINDLED THE FIRE '? 137 

But perhaps a lust for gambling may lie latent 
in some young man's breast, and I may 
quicken it into life by my offer of a tempta- 
tion. There is fire in that pack of cards ! 
And I 'deliberately place that fire amid the 
inflammable passions of that youthful breast. 
On me rests the consequences of the act, as 
well as upon him .whom I lead into tempta- 
tion. The motive does not alter the result by 
one iota. 

*' For evil is wrought by want of thought, 
As well as by want of heart." 

2. Among social virtues none is more popu- 
lar than that of hospitality. When bounti- 
fully practised toward the needy ^ it rises to the 
dignity of a Christian grace. And ordinary 
hospitalities may be set to the credit of a gen- 
erous spirit. But here is the master or mis- 
tress of a house who spread their table with a 
lavish provision for the entertainment of their 
evening guests. Among the abundant viands 
of that table the lady of the house places the 
choicest brands of Madeira wine, and on a 



138 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

side-board she sets out a huge bowl of inviting 
punch. And among the invited guests of the 
evening comes a man who has promised the 
wife of his early love that he will never again 
yield to his awful appetite and turn their 
sweet home into a hell. He sees the tempter 
in that accursed punch-bowl, and is pressed 
very courteously to " take a glass." The fire 
" catches in the dry thorns " in an instant. 
He drinks. He goes reeling into his own 
door that night, and his whole household is 
in a flame of excitement and terror, and 
agony and shame. JSfow who kindled that 
fire? Let her who put that bottle to her 
neighbor's lips make answer! According to 
the Jewish law, the incendiary was required 
to pay the damages of the conflagration. But 
what " restitution " can be made for a ruined 
character, a desolated home, or a broken 
heart ? 

If my house and its contents are destroyed 
by fire, the insurance company may restore 
my pecuniary loss. But they cannot replace 
the precious keepsakes and the relics of the 



WHO KINDLED THE FIRE ] 139 

loved and lost which my dwelling contained. 
To-day there are thousands of human houses 
in New York and Brooklyn — dwellings of 
immortal souls — that are on fire ! In these 
burning bodies of our fellow-men are precious 
things beyond the wealth of Ophir, — hopes, 
talents, faculties, affections, and an immortality 
of being. Who kindled those fires ? We 
answer that every one who tempts another 
to the social glass is a partner in producing 
the conflagration. Who feed the fires 1 Un- 
questionably the venders of strong drink, w^ho, 
for lucre's sake, deal out the liquid fi^ames 
of perdition. The proprietors of the 10,000 
drinking-saloons in our twin cities do not aim 
to kill their fellow-men. But they do kill 
them, whatever be their secret motives in 
pursuing their abominable trafiic. At the 
bar of God they will be held responsible. 
And let me inquire just here whether those 
Christian citizens who do not even lift a fin- 
ger to sustain the law which hanks the grog- 
seller's fires during God's own Sabhath are 
not themselves partially guilty for some of 



140 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

the consequences of the wide-spread confla- 
gration. We commend this question to the 
consciences of our neighbors on the day of 
election. 

3. The artillery of this divine law against 
incendiarism has a wide range. It is pointed 
against that social nuisance, the slandere7\ 
" Behold how great a matter his little fire 
kindleth ! " The utterance of evil reports may 
be well likened to playing with fire. For 
there is but a spark required to set a whole 
neighborhood in a blaze ; and when the flame 
gets under way it is beyond all human con- 
trol. No matter that the spark may have 
been lighted without malicious motive. The 
ugly scorch upon the commercial integrity 
of the merchant, or upon the good name of 
the Christian minister, or upon the reputation 
of the young maiden, may not have been the 
prompting of wilful malignity. But the scorch 
is there ; and somebody struck the spark. 

A careless word sometimes makes irreme- 
diable mischief. I have read that a foolish 
young English clerk — fond of practical jokes 



WHO KINDLED THE FIRE ] 141 

— once said to a friend, " Have you heard 

that E & Co., the bankers, have stopped 

payment ? " He merely meant that the bank- 
ing-house had as usual closed up for the night. 
But he amused himself by seeing how he had 
startled his friend. He did not stop to ex- 
plain his real meaning. His friend mentioned 
the alarming report to another : the rumor 
spread. Next day there was a " run upon 

the bank," and Messrs. E & Company 

were obliged to suspend payment ! The 
silly youth did not mean to burn down the 
commercial credit of a prosperous house : 
he only meant to amuse himself hy playing 
with fire. And a kindred mischief to his is 
perpetrated by every one who retails con- 
temptible gossip, or gives birth to a scurrilous 
slander. " An abomination to the Lord is 
the false witness who speaketh lies, and he 
that soweth discord among brethren." 

4. This law against incendiarism applies 
to every utterance of spiritual error and infi- 
delity. He who utters a devilish suggestion 
to corrupt the innocence of chastity sets fire 



142 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

to passion, and becomes the incendiary of a 
soul. He who scatters a pernicious literature 
comes under the same condemnation. He 
who sows scepticism, by tongue or pen, sets 
fire to the " standing corn " of righteous opinion. 
Beware how you play with the sparks of false- 
hood ! Beware how you play with the fire 
of wicked suggestion, that may kindle a blaze 
of sin in another's heart ! Beware how you 
fling an infidel thought among the growing 
barley of a young and sensitive mind ! For 
in the day of final reckoning you will be called 
up to answer to the question, who Jcindled the 
fire? 



CHEIST CLEANSING THE HEART- 
TEMPLE. 



TN what a turmoil and confusion did our 
blessed Lord find the temple when he en- 
tered it on a certain time of the Passover ! A 
noisy crowd of money-changers and cattle- 
brokers are driving their selfish and sacrilegious 
traffic. Herds of oxen are lowing ; sheep are 
bleating ; cages of doves block up the way ; the 
air is filled with the jabbering babel of traders' 
tongues, all eager to sell their beasts and birds 
for the sacrifices. It is a terrible desecration 
of an edifice sacred to the Lord of heaven and 
earth. 

Eight among these noisy traffickers enters 
One who is greater than the temple. Seizing 
the small rushes which were used for tying up 
the cattle, our Saviour twisted them into a 
" scourge " or whip, and drove out the whole 



144 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

crowd of profane intruders. The tables of 
the money-changers are overturned ; and to 
those who were turning the sanctuary into a 
pigeon-house the Divine Master says : " Take 
these things hence ! make not my Father s 
house a house of merchandise ! " The temple 
is cleansed in an instant. Not, of course, by 
the terror inspired by a small whip in a single 
hand ; but by a supernatural authority, — the 
authority of the Divine Messiah, which as- 
serted itself in such a manner that the sacrile- 
gious rabble moved off, convicted of their 
wrong, and overawed by the rebuke of that 
Sovereign who was " Lord also of the temple." 
In this striking scene I find a parable, full 
of spiritual instruction. The soul of every 
Christian is a temple. It becomes such at the 
time of conversion. Formerly a habitation of 
the evil one, it becomes, by regeneration, a 
" habitation of God through the Spirit." As 
the stones on Mount Moriah were but common 
stones until they were consecrated to God's 
use, so the powers and affections of a sinner's 
heart become, through true conversion, a 



CHRIST CLEATS SING THE HEART-TEMPLE. 145 

dwelling-place for Jesus. " Know ye not," 
said Paul, " that ye are the temple of God, 
and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If 
any man defile the temple of God, him will God 
destroy, for the temple of God is holy ; which 
temi:>le ye are!' What a glorious idea this pre- 
sents of a faithful follower of Christ ! His 
heart is a sanctuary of the spirit, — full of 
holy thoughts and devout aspirations. Not a 
gloomy cloister; but a tabernacle of praise, 
with strains of lofty melody pealing through 
the arches, and the sweet incense of gratitude 
ascending from the altars. The mercy-seat of 
prayer is there ; and the flames of love, con- 
suming the offerings, send forth the " savor of 
a sweet smell." 

But alas ! how often is this inner temple of 
the believer profaned by intruders as sacrile- 
gious as they who brought their beasts and 
birds and bullion into the sacred edifice on 
Mount Moriah ! Selfishness brings in its herd 
of sinful schemes into the apartments which 
belong to Christ alone. Gradually, and under 
fair pretences, self edges in, — first into the 



146 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

outer courts, and then into the very sanctum 
of the soul. But into this profaned heart how 
often does the loving Jesus come with his 
scourge of sharp chastisements ! How often 
does he twist the very plans of our selfishness 
into a thong to smite us ! Selfishness becomes 
its own retribution. Our pride, too, is often 
fearfully scourged by humiliations and mor- 
tifications and exposures. Poor, boastful 
Peter ! What a scourging did his self-conceit 
receive in Pilate's garden ! And what a terri- 
ble whip of retribution did David's lust receive, 
when the child of his guilt lay dead before his 
weeping eyes ! It was to purify, and not to 
destroy, that the chastising Lord entered into 
those heart-temples. And our pitying Saviour, 
when he weaves out of our sins a scourge to 
punish us, only carries out his discipline of 
mercy. Whom he loveih he chasteneth ; and 
scourgeth (observe the word) — scourgeth 
every child whom he receiveth. 

We could point to hundreds of church- 
members into whose heart-temple covet- 
ousness has intruded and set up its tables 



CHRIST CLEANSING THE HEART-TEMPLE. 147 

of traffic, in despite of that solemn caution, 
" Ye cannot serve God and Mammon." Such 
men are eaten up by the greed for gain ; they 
are thoroughly worldly-minded and unspiritu- 
alized. The heart that was once a temple has 
become a warehouse, or a broker's office. Let 
such backsliding professors look out for the 
scourge ! Perhaps it may come in a sore 
spiritual distress ; perhaps in commercial dis- 
aster, which shall overturn the tables and 
scatter the hoards of coveted wealth. In 
1857, the Lord entered into the American 
Church with the scourge of commercial chas- 
tisements, and threw down the tables of traffic 
in terrible bankruptcies ; but it was to prepare 
the way for the most glorious revivals known 
in this century. 

Sinful ambition is another intruder into the 
heart sanctuary. " Seekest thou great things 
for thyself? Seek them not." But, in spite 
of this tender warning, ambition gets posses- 
sion ; until at length the indignant Master 
enters to overthrow our guilty schemes, with 
the stern rebuke, " Take these things hence ; " 



148 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

'' he that exalteth himself shall be abased." 
Methinks that some of us may have set up 
domestic idols in the temple of the heart 
We loved them more than we loved Him 
who gave them. And when the scourge 
came, — came, too, in an unlooked-for hour, — 
it drew the heart's blood ! The surgery of 
bereavement was terrible. The death- wail 
sounded through the inner chambers, while 
the Master was carrying off our idols. But, 
when the idol was gone, there was more 
room for Him to whom the whole heart had 
once been promised. Wn.en our loved ones 
are taken, then, like the sisters of Bethany, 
we send for that Friend who had been quite 
too much forgotten or neglected before. 
Blessed be the chastisements, however bitter, 
which purify the heart for Jesus ! Blessed 
be the scourge, if it is only in that hand 
which was once pierced for our redemption ! 
Love never gives one blow too many, or too 
hard. 

There is one other thought worth noting 
here, if it be not too close a torturing of the 



CHRIST CLEANSING THE HEART-TEMFLE. 149 

very words of the inspired narrative. You 
will observe that, when Christ cleansed the 
temple of intruders, he " made a scourge of 
small cords." He wove the little withes that 
lay about the floors into the whip of chastise- 
ment. So does that same loving Lord now 
employ little trials as well as great bereave- 
ments in the spiritual discipline of his people. 
Many a Christian has a daily vexation to try 
his patience or to punish his besetting sins. 
Little pains, little annoyances, and little dis- 
comforts are as much a part of our discipline 
as are the formidable adversities that occa- 
sionally smite us like hurricanes. Little vexa- 
tions often creep into the secret places, and, 
by finding out the sore spots, discover to us 
our faults. Let us not despise the chastening 
of our Divine Physician and Purifier when he 
sends small trials as well as great ones to test 
our graces or to drive out our sins. Remem- 
ber that it was with a scourge of small cords 
that the Lord of the temple expelled the 
profane intruders from his dwelling-place. 
Better, far better, to bear the scourge of little 



150 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

cords, when laid on by the hand of love, than 
to endure the whip of scorpions in that world 
where punishment can torture and sting, but 
may never purify. 



WEDDED YOU HEAVEN. 



"X TEXT to choosing the Lord Jesus Christ 
-*- ^ as his Saviour and guide, the most im- 
portant choice a young man can make is that 
of a loife. Yet this most eventful step is too 
often regarded from first to last in the most 
trivial aspect. With many it is the merest 
matter of fancy or boyish caprice. Some- 
times a wife is sought for the sole grati- 
fication of sensual appetite. Sometimes 
marriage is viewed entirely as a shrewd pecu- 
niary speculation. Indolent, extravagant young 
men often intrigue through a marriage-vow for 
a wealth which they are too lazy or too thrift- 
less to earn by honest toil. On the other 
hand, many an ambitious parent has sought 
to purchase a splendid " establishment " with 
the sweetest charms that Heaven has bestowed 



152 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

upon a daughter. What baser bargain can be 
consummated] And when a woman consents 
to sell her person without her heart to a rich 
suitor, what is it but the essence of prostitu- 
tion without its loathsome name ? Only one 
man should be rich enough to win my daugh- 
ter : it is he who can offer a love without a 
rival, and a character without a stain. True 
religion, common sense, industrious habits, and 
a warm heart, — when a young man can offer 
ihese^ no daughter who is worthy of such a 
prize will be likely to " say him nay^ 

With what a rash recklessness do millions 
rush into the momentous engagements that 
yield their inevitable retribution of domestic 
misery ! How few seek by prayer for Divine 
guidance when choosing the companion of 
their heart, their home, and their destiny ! 
Far oftener, we fear, is it passion than prayer 
that controls this great decision. The grati- 
fication of a fancy, the excitement of a 
courtship, and the frolic of a wedding are 
frequently the only preparations for the 
serious realities of wedded life. 



WEDDED FOR HEAVEN. 158 

Boyish caprice and girlish romance look 
vastly different in human eyes when they 
have crystallized down into the permanent 
forms of daily existence under the same 
roof, at the same table and fireside, year in 
and year out, for summer and winter, for sick- 
ness or health, for better or worse, clear on 
to the doorway of the tomb. When the 
novelty of wedded life has worn away, and 
perhaps the beauty of the fair face that in- 
spired the early passion has quite faded out, 
then there must be something solid left be- 
hind, or marriage is a mockery and its coveted 
happiness but a dream. There must be mutual 
confidence, mutual respect, unity of aim, and 
old-fashioned love : there ought to be also a 
union of hearts in the love of Christ, in closet 
devotions, and at the communion-table. When 
these are the qualities of a nuptial union, it is 
a marriage in the Lord. It " shineth more and 
more " from the auroral dawn of first love unto 
the perfect day of rich and ripened bliss. 
When young hearts are wedded in Christ, 
they are wedded for heaven. It is a de- 

7* 



154 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

lightful act for a Christian minister to join 
such hearts and hands together ; but the 
words sometimes stick in his throat when 
he attempts to pronounce a benediction on 
a marriage which neither common sense nor 
conscience have had a share in bringing about. 
His fee seems to come oat of Judas's bag. 

The admirable Philip Henry, of Broad 
Oaks, England, sought the hand of an only 
daughter in a somewhat prominent family. 
Her father said to her, " This young man 
seems to be an excellent preacher, but I do 
not know whence he came." " True," replied 
the daughter ; " but I know where he is going, 
and I want to go along with him." The mar- 
riage proved eminently happy, and one of the 
children was the famous commentator. When 
his own son Matthew and his daughters asked 
his consent to their marriage, he said, " Please 
God, and please yourselves, and then you will 
be sure to please me." At their weddings he 
saluted them with a fatherly kiss, and said, 
*' Other people wish you much happiness, but 
I wish you much holiness : if you have that, 
you are certain to be happy." 



WEDDED FOR HEAVEN. 155 

No two steps in a man's life are so solemn 
as those which join him to Christ's church, 
and join him to a wife. Marriage is an 
ordinance of God. It has often proved a 
" saving ordinance " to those who had no 
other tie to Christianity. The men whom a 
wise marriage has saved (with God's blessing) 
are innumerable. The men whom a reckless, 
wretched marriage have ruined, — are their 
histories not written in the " Book of the 
Chronicles " of prayerless homes and im- 
penitent death-beds ? 

" Rebekah," said a dying husband to the 
wife who bent over him in remorseful agony, 
— " Rebekah, I am a lost man. You opposed 
our family worship and my secret prayer. 
You drew me away into temptation, and to 
neglect every religious duty. I believe my 
fate is sealed. Rebekah, you are the cause 
of my everlasting ruin." Terrible in eternity 
will be the reunion of those who helped each 
other on the downward road, partners in im- 
piety, and wedded for perdition. 

On the other hand, many a man has owed 



156 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

his conversion to the steadfast, noble, attrac- 
tive godliness of a praying wife. " I never 
doubted the immediate answer of prayer since 
the conversion of my husband," said a devoted 
Christian once to her pastor. He had long 
been a stranger to God, and bitter in his 
opposition to the Gospel. During a powerful 
revival in her church she attended a morn- 
ing prayer-meeting. This annoyed him, and 
he denounced it as a waste of time, and 
forbade her to go again. Next morning she 
came down with her bonnet on to go to the 
meeting. He sternly said, " If you do dare 
to go, you will be sorry for it." She could not 
speak : the rudeness of her husband crushed 
her into silence. But she determined not to 
retreat; and when she reached the meeting 
she could only bow her face on the desk be- 
fore her, and pour forth her tears and prayers 
for the obdurate heart she had left behind her. 
There was certainly one praying woman in 
that gathering. 

When evening came, the kind wife put 
away the children in the crib, took her needle, 



WEDDED FOR HEAVEN. J157 

and sat down by the fire. Presently the hus- 
band came in. " Wife, are you not going 
to meeting to-night V "No," she replied 
gently : " I thought I would stay home with 
you." He sat awhile in guilty silence : the 
tire burned brightly in the grate, and a hot- 
ter fire burned in the poor fellow's heart. 
"Wife," he exclaimed, "I can't stand this 
any longer. The words I spoke this morning 
to you have tormented me all day. I can't 
get any peace till you have forgiven me and 
prayed for me. Wo7it you pray for me ? 
Oh, what a life I have led ! " They knelt 
together. " That night I shall remember 
through eternity," said the happy woman, 
afterward. " There was no sleep for us. 
Before the dawn of day peace dawned into 
his soul : we went to the morning meeting 
together, and he rose and confessed Jesus as 
his Redeemer." That man walked faithfully 
with God ever after : from that memorable 
day they two were wedded for heaven. 

Happy are those who, like Aquila and 
Priscilla, are united in the Lord ! Happy 



15H THOUGHT-HIVES. 

are they who walk the life-journey, — all 
the safer and all the happier for walking it 
hand in hand, keeping step to the voice of 
duty and of God. Wedded in time, they 
are wedded for heaven ; and will sit down 
together, with exquisite rapture, at the " mar- 
riage-supper of the Lamb." 



LIKE FATHEE, LIKE FAMILY. 



"TV /TAN Y a sermon has been preached to 
■^^^ mothers; many a tract and treatise 
written on the mother's influence. But how 
often are sermons preached to fathers'? Is 
there any power for good or evil greater than 
the influence of him who leads the family^ 
who propagates his own character in the 
persons and the souls of his children, who 
lives his own life over again in the lives of 
those whom he has begotten? 

Like father, like family. Set this down as 
a philosophical principle. Occasional excep- 
tions do not undermine the rule : it is an or- 
ganic one. The father impresses himself 
upon his children just as undesignedly, but 
just as surely, as I impress my shadow on 
the ground when I walk into the sunshine. 
The father cannot help it, if he would. The 



160 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

father leads ^ by God's decree. He makes 
the home-law ; fixes the precedents ; creates 
the home-atmosphere ; and the " odor of the 
house " cHngs to the garments of the children 
if they go around the globe. " His father 
was a Papist," or " his father was a Protes- 
tant," is the sufficient reason that determines 
most men's religious opinions. "He is a chip 
of the old block," said some one when he heard 
the younger Pitt's first speech. '' Nay," re- 
plied Burke, "he is the old block himself" 

In nothing is this so true as in moral resem- 
blances. A father's devoted godliness is often 
reproduced in his children. But still oftener 
are his errors and his vices. He commonly 
sets the habits of the household. Whatever 
" fires the father kindles, the children gather 
the wood." If the father rises late on the 
Sabbath morning, the boys come down late 
and ill-humored to the table. If he goes 
on a Sunday excursion, they must carry the 
lunch and the fishing-tackle, and share in 
the guilty sports. If he wishes to read a 
Sunday paper, then George or Tom must 
go out to buy it. 



LIKE FATHER, LIKE FAMILY. 161 

In looking over my congregation, I find 
that, while several pious fathers have un- 
converted children, there are but few prayer- 
less fathers who have converted sons. The 
pull of the father downward is too strong 
for the upward pull of the Sabbath school 
and the pulpit. If the father talks money 
constantly, he usually rears a family for Mam- 
mon. If he talks pictures and books at his 
table, he is likely to awaken a thirst for 
literature or art. If he talks horses and 
games and prize-fights, he brings up a family 
of jockeys and sportsmen. If he makes his 
own fireside attractive in the evening, he will 
probably succeed in anchoring his children at 
home. But if he hears the clock strike eleven 
in the theatre or the club-house, he need not 
be surprised if his boys hear it strike twelve 
in the gambling-house or the drinking-saloon. 
If he leads in irreligion, what but the grace 
of God can keep his imitative household 
from following him to perdition ] The his- 
tory of such a family is commonly written 
in that sadly frequent description given in 



162 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

the Old Testament : " He walked in all the 
sins of his father, which he had done before 
him." 

I find two very different types of paternal 
religion. Both are nominally Christian. The 
one parent prays at his family altar for the 
conversion of his children. He then labors 
to fulfil his own prayers. He makes religion 
prominent in his family : it is as pervasive as 
the atmosphere. The books that are brought 
home, the papers selected, the amusements 
chosen, the society that is sought, the aims 
in life that are set before those children, all 
bear in one direction, and that the right one. 
God is not invoked by that father to convert 
his offspring to godliness, while he is doing 
his utmost to pervert them to worldliness, or 
self-seeking, or frivolity, no more than he 
would ask God to restore his sick child while 
he was giving the poor boy huge doses of 
opium or strychnine. 

Yet there is a class of professing Chris- 
tians who do this very thing. They pray 
for a child's conversion, and yet on the very 



LIKE FATHER, LIKE FAMILY. 163 

evenings when prayer-meetings are being held 
they take that son or daughter to the opera or 
the fashionable rout. They pray that their 
households may live for God, and then set 
them an example of most intense money- 
clutching and mammon- worship. A man 
sits down with a solemn face to the com- 
munion-table, and then comes home to gossip, 
to crack jokes, to talk politics, to entertain 
Sunday visitors at a sumptuous feast, to do 
any thing and every thing which tends to dis- 
sipate the impressions of God's worship and 
the sacramental service. Such fathers never 
follow up a pungent sermon, never watch 
for opportunities to lead their children Christ- 
ward, never co-operate with God's Spirit for 
the conversion of an impenitent son or daugh- 
ter. What must an ingenuous child think of 
such a father's prayers ? 

I entreat parents most solemnly not to 
stand in the way of their children's salva- 
tion. If you do not help the good work, 
pray do not hinder it. The selfish or in- 
consistent life of some fathers is enough to 



164 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

neutralize all the teachings and appeals of 
both pulpit and Sabbath school. To Paul's 
question, " How knowest thou, O wife ! if 
thou mayst save thy husband ] " we would 
add the startling query, '' How knowest thou, 
O father ! but thou mayst destroy thy own 
children r' 

How many a devoted praying wife is strug- 
gling to lead her children heavenward, and 
finds her every effort nullified by the open 
irreligion of an ungodly father! She toils 
on alone, prays on alone, works alone, and 
weeps alone over their perils and the fatal 
example at their own fireside. God pity 
and support her ! She is striving to bear 
her children on her own shoulders ; but to- 
day her sad failure is written in the homely 
adage, Like father, like family. 



WEESTLING PRAYER. 



" T^HERE'S nae good dune, John, till ye get 
-*- to the close grups.^^ So said " Jeems, 
the door-keeper" of Broughton Place church, 
Edinburgh, to the immortal Dr. John Brown, 
the author of " Rah and his Friends." Old 
Jeems got into a marvellous nearness with God 
in prayer, and conversed with Him as he would 
with his " ain father." He understood the 
power of a close grip when an earnest soul is 
wrestling with God for a blessing. 

Jacob, the patriarch, had such a struggle in 
that remarkable and mystical scene at Penuel. 
We are told that he wrestled with the Angel 
of the Covenant — who may have been the in- 
carnate Jesus — until the breaking of the day. 
The angel said, " Let me go, the day break- 
eth." Here was a trial of the patriarch's faith. 



166 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

" What is that to me," thought the eager man, 
" that the day is breaking ? I must have the 
blessing now. There is no daylight of hope 
for me unless I obtain what I am struggling 
for. , / will not let thee go,, except thou hless 
me!'' He triumphed on the spot. 

So clung the Syro-Phoenician mother to 
Christ when she was beseeching him to heal 
her sick daughter. The Master seemed to put 
her off, in order to try the mettle of her faith. 
But she came up into what the old Scotchman 
called a closer grip, with the heart of infinite 
love, and she carried the day. " Go thy way," 
said Jesus unto her. "O woman! great is 
thy faith : be it unto thee even as thou wilt." 
And so he granted to a great faith what he 
might have denied to a little faith. Precisely 
so is it with Christians now, and with churches. 
An honest, persevering faith — a faith that 
works while it prays, a faith that holds on 
through discouragements — achieves the result 
it pleads for. For faith creates such a condi- 
tion of things that it is wise for God to grant 
what would otherwise be denied. 



WRESTLING PRAYER. 167 

There are many things in the providence of 
God to which we ought to submit. We ought 
to submit unconditionally and without a mur- 
mur to chastisements and bereavements. But 
there are certain other things placed in our 
way expressly that we may wrestle with them 
and overcome them. If a temptation assails 
us, we are never to submit to it. If a diffi- 
culty blocks our path of duty, then is the time 
for a stout faith to " remove the mountain." 
A father whose children are yet unconverted 
has no business to sit down in silent submis- 
sion to such a state of things. Neither has a 
pastor or a church any right to sit down sub- 
missively to the terrible fact that the truth is 
powerless, and no souls are converted. The 
Syro-Phoenician woman would have done 
wrong if she had gone home submissive when 
Christ seemed to be denying her reasonable 
request. God is a supreme sovereign up yon- 
der; but we are responsible free agents down 
here. And as a sovereign He has commanded 
us to pray, to " pray without ceasing." He re- 
serves to Himself the right to grant our requests 



168 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

when He chooses and as He chooses. It is 
our right to pray, and it is God's right to be- 
stow just such answers as seem best to Him. I 
would define faith to be that temper of the 
soul which submits to all which God orders, 
but never submits to what God can better. If 
we yield to sin or to discouragements when we 
ought to struggle against them, or if we yield 
to the absence of spiritual blessings without 
an earnest wrestling for those blessings, we are 
unworthy clods, and we deserve to suffer. 

"What a magnificent epic are the triumphs 
of faith ! The Bible history fairly shines with 
the bright record of persistent, prevailing 
prayer. The early Church were '' continuing 
with one accord in supplication " when the 
Holy Spirit descended in the Pentecost. When 
the Apostle Peter was locked up in a dungeon, 
prayer was made without ceasing by the peo- 
ple of God for him ; and the heaven-sent 
angel opened his dungeon doors, and sent him 
to the prayer-meeting as a living witness to 
their prevalence Avith God. I have seen 
awakened sinners come into prayer-gatherings 



WRESTLING PRAYER. 169 

who were just as truly delivered out of Satan's 
prison as Peter was, and by the same agency 
of intercessory prayer. I have known a 
mother to cling to the mercy-seat, and to 
wrestle with God until the beloved child whom 
she could not convert has been converted. 
The wife has wrestled for her impenitent hus- 
band — "I will not let thee go, except Thou 
bless him ! " We have seen a godly wife sit 
and sob through a prayer-meeting until the 
handkerchief that covered her face was 
soaked with tears ; and she has gone home 
to find her husband himself weeping over his 
sins. 

Prayer is power. When Luther was in the 
mid-heat of his awful battle with the Great 
Beast, he used to say, " I cannot get on with- 
out three hours a day in prayer." John Welsh, 
of Scotland, often leaped out of his bed at 
midnight, and wrapped a plaid about him, and 
wrestled with the Lord until the breaking of 
the day. His preaching was mighty when he 
came to his pulpit from these Penuels of plead- 
ing with his God. There is many a church 



170 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

among us which is in a midnight of slumber 
and barrenness. But repentance and wresthng 
prayer will hring the daybreak. 

Unless we are much mistaken, there are 
two things which American Christians ought 
to do. The one is to quit the companionship 
of a self-indulgent, corrupting " world." The 
other is to come into closer companionship 
with Christ. Closer to Christ in godly living. 
Closer in persevering prayer. And let us not 
forget, brethren, that it is the " close grup " 
vv^hich achieves the victory, and brings the 
revival blessing. 



GEEAT EXPECTATIONS— FROM GOD. 



'THHE less we expect from this world the 
-^ better for us. The less we expect from 
our fellow-men, whether of spiritual help or 
of inspiring example, the smaller will be our 
disappointment. He that leans on his own 
strength leans on a broken reed. We are al- 
ways going to be something stronger, purer, 
and holier. Somewhere in the future there 
always hangs in the air a golden ideal of a 
higher life that w^e are going to reach ; but 
as we move on the dream of better things 
moves on before us also. It is like the child's 
running over behind the hill to catch the rain- 
bow. When he gets on the hill-top the rain- 
bow is as far off as ever. Thus does our day 
dream of a higher Christian life keep floating 
away from us ; and we are left to realize what 
frail, unreliable creatures we are when we rest 



172 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

our expectations of growth and of victory over 
evil in ourselves. " My soul, wait thou only 
upon God ! My expectation is only from 
Himr 

God never deceives us and never disap- 
points us. I do not say that God never 
allows us to be disappointed in our darling 
plans of life, in our children, or in our most 
cherished projects. What I mean is, that we 
are never disappointed in God. When we 
study the Almighty, whether in His glorious 
Word or in Nature, we find our utmost ex- 
pectation overtopped by the stupendous and 
magnificent reality. Eead such a book as 
" Ecce Coelum," and see if you are disap- 
pointed in your Creator. When, too, we 
obey God, we always find our reward, either 
sooner or later, — just as surely as light comes 
with the sunrise. When we trust God, He 
never deceives us. When we pray to Him 
aright^ — that is, with faith, with persever- 
ance, with submissiveness, and with a single 
eye to God's will, — He answers us. He 
always returns the best answer possible. Our 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS FROM GOD. 173 

Heavenly Father makes no mistakes in His 
dealings with suppliants. He is a sovereign, 
but not a despot. If it pleases Him to keep 
us waiting for the trial of our faith, then we 
must wait. 

But delays are not denials. God's long- 
dated promises are honored in His own good 
time. If we had but to demand from God 
just what we desired, and when we desired 
it, we should be stealing His sceptre and ruling 
the Almighty Ruler. Did you ever know a 
child that ruled its parents wdthout ruining it- 
self? And, if it spoils our children to let them 
always have their own way, I am sure that 
it would be my ruin if I could bend my Heav- 
enly Father's will to all my own wishes. If 
this be your " expectation " from God, He will 
very soon teach you better. 

God fulfils no foolish, greedy, presumptu- 
ous requests. But He does keep His promises. 
(He never promised to let you or me hold the 
reins.) He always answers a right prayer, 
and in the way and at the time which His all- 
wise love determines. And with what unex- 



174 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

pected deliverances and blessings He often 
loves to take us by surprise ! I never went 
through a revival in my congregation without 
discovering that I could not trust God our 
Saviour too much, or my fellow-man too little. 
Are you Christ's, my brother ] Then all 
things are yours. In him dwelleth all the 
fulness of the Godhead. " Of his fulness 
have all we received," said that beloved dis- 
ciple who leaned on the Saviour's bosom. 
John was never disappointed in his Lord ; 
nor was Paul either, when he found him- 
self " filled with all the fulness of God." 
There is a fulness of sufficiency in Christ 
as a Divine Kedeemer. His blood cleans- 
eth from all sin. There is a fulness of 
justifying merit in him ; for " there is no 
condemnation to them who are in Christ 
Jesus." There is a fulness of power in him 
who " is able to save to the uttermost all 
who come unto God by him." There is a 
fulness of love in him who " having loved 
his own who are in the world loveth them 
to the end." In my Lord and Saviour Jesus 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS FROM GOD. 175 

Christ is a fulness of grace and strength 
and peace and consolation that no man has 
ever been able to explore, and all the needy 
sinners in the universe could never be able 
to exhaust. 

To little brooks men have often gone in 
seasons of drought, and found only a parched 
bed, cracked open with the heat. But who 
ever saw the Atlantic low f What ship ever 
failed to set sail for Liverpool through lack of 
water I Oh ! the depth of the riches of the 
wisdom and knowledge and grace of God ! 
When some one urged old John Jacob Astor 
to subscribe for a certain object, and told him 
that his own son had subscribed to it already, 
the old man replied, very dryly: "Ah! he 
has got a rich father.'' Brother, you and I 
have got a rich Father, too. You are an heir 
of the King of kings. Then ask for great 
things, for " all our expectation is from Him." 

God must take it ill in us that we ask 
for so little, and with such a puny faith. 
He says : " Open your mouth wide, and I 
will fill it." He must wonder that we ex- 



176 THOUGHT-HIVES-. 

pect SO little from Him. " The Lord taketh 
pleasure" — in whom? Why, in "those 
that hope in His mercy. He loveth to be 
inquired after." Oh, if we would only ex- 
pect enough, and strive after enough, and 
ask enough from our infinitely rich Father 
up yonder, w^ho can tell what blessings we 
might obtain ! 

Paul only expressed the unanimous judg- 
ment of all the heirs in God's household 
when he exclaimed : " I know whom I have 
believed." He summed up his glorious past 
and his expectations for the future when he 
cried out with rapture : " I have finished my 
course ; I have kept the faith ; henceforth 
there is laid up for me a crown of righteous- 
ness which the righteous Judge shall give 
me in that day ! " Paul " looked for " that 
magnificent inheritance. So do I. So may 
you, if you are a follower of Jesus. I ex- 
pect that if I endure to the end I shall be 
saved. I expect, and confidently, too, that 
through faith I shall be kept by the power 
of God unto salvation. I expect that when 



GREAT EXPECTATIONS FROM GOD. 177 

I walk through the valley of the shadow of 
death He will be with me ; His rod and His 
staff will comfort me. Heaven is to me 
only an expectation. So is to-morrow's sun- 
rise. I have not yet seen either of them ; 
but they are coming. Behind this day's 
midnight lies to-morrow's dawn. Behind 
that night called death lies the day-dawn 
of Heaven's exceeding weight of glory ! 

I expect that, if I hold fast to Christ, I 
shall see it. Beyond all that human eye 
hath yet seen or human ear heard is that 
glory to be revealed to me ! T expect a joy 
that shall be to me as a " harp," and a 
triumph that shall be to me as a " palm," 
and a glory that shall be as a " crown unfad- 
ing." Figurative or not though the words 
may be, I expect the substance which they 
describe. My soul, wait thou only upon 
God ; my expectation is from Him ! 

" Our knowledge of that life is small, 
The eye of faith is dim ; 
But 'tis enough that Christ knows all, 
And we shall be like him ! " 
8* 



HYMNS OF LONGING FOR EEST. 



" /^^H that I had wings like a dove, for then 
^^ would I fly away, and be at rest ! " 
The reference in this beautiful verse is to the 
turtle-dove of Palestine, a bu'd of such free 
spirit that if confined in a cage, it soon droops 
and dies. How often the child of God 
breathes this yearning aspiration for a higher 
and a holier atmosphere ! How often, in sea- 
sons of grief and disappointment and utter 
disgust with the inconstancy of our fellow- 
creatures, the homesick heart pines for escape 
into the very bosom of Jesus ! For there only 
is rest, full, sweet, and all-satisfying. 

This aspiration is not only breathed in 
prayer. It is uttered in song. Many of our 
richest hymns are prayers in metre. And few 
yearnings break forth oftener in the psalmodies 



HYMNS OF LONGING FOR REST. 179 

of God's people than the yearning for soul- 
rest. Of the hymns that are pitched to this- 
key we might mention many. Of the hymnists 
who have composed them, none is more cele- 
brated than James Montgomery. 

He is the Cowper of the nineteenth cen- 
tury, — not in the poetry of nature, but in 
sacred song. Scotland gave him birth, as she 
did to Henry Ly te and Horatius Bonar. He 
was born in Ayrshire, the land of Robert 
Burns, in 1771. His father was a Moravian 
missionary, who labored and died in the West 
Indies. James united with the Moravian 
Church at the age of forty-three, and his mem- 
ory is held in high veneration among that 
small but true-hearted band of Christians. 
The Moravian body is like a tube-rose, small 
in bulk, but sends its sweet odors afar off. 
With this communion Montgomery wor- 
shipped until in his later years, and then he 
attended an evangelical Episcopal church (St. 
George's) in Sheffield, England. 

During my student days I spent some time 
at Sheffield, and often met the venerable poet. 



180 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

He was small of stature, with hair as white as 
snow. Although he had long been an editor, 
— and once been imprisoned for his bold utter- 
ances in his newspaper, the Iris^ — he would 
be easily mistaken for a clergyman. He wore 
an exceedingly conspicuous white cravat, 
which reached close to his chin, and gave you 
the impression that he was suffering from a 
chronic sore throat. When I first called on 
him at his residence, "The Mount," several of 
his most familiar lines began to repeat them- 
selves to me, such as, — 

" Friend after friend departs, 
Who hath not lost a friend ? " 

And that other exquisite verse, wliich often 
weaves itself into our secret devotions : — 

'* Here in the body pent, 

Absent from Ham I roam ; 
Yet niglitlij pitch my moving ierd. 
One day''s marcli nearer home.'''' 

There are few finer verses in the whole 
range of devotional poetry. It is a pilgrim's 
wayfaring song, as he pulls up the tent-pins 



HYMNS OF LONGING FOR REST. 181 

every morning, and moves onward towards his 
everlasting rest. 

Montgomery never visited this country, but 
he was full of warm enthusiasm towards 
America, in whose churches his hymns are 
sung every Sabbath. He was also full of hon- 
est indignation that so many people would 
persist in confounding him with the spasmodic 
Kobert Montgomery, whose poem on " Satan " 
has been impaled, like a buzzing beetle on a 
pin, by the sharp pen of Macaulay. " Only 
think," said the dear old poet to me, " that T 
should have just got a letter telling me that 
my poem on Satan is the hest I ever wrote^ 
I do not wonder that his wrath waxed warm 
under such an imputation. The last time I 
ever saw the veteran, he was sitting in his 
pew at St. George's, the " good, gray head " 
bending reverently over his prayer-book, as he 
joined in the responses. He " flew away, and 
was at rest," in 1854, at the ripe old age of 
eighty-three. 

Montgomery's most popular hymn is that 
one which breathes out the longing of a weary 
heart : — 



182 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

** Oh ! where shall rest be found, — 
Rest for the weary soul ? 
'Twere vain the ocean depths to sound. 
Or pierce to either pole." 

Ten thousand times have God's best beloved 
children, when made sick at the worthlessness 
and emptiness of worldly treasures, broke out 
in the fervid protestation : — 

* ' This world can never give 

The bliss for which we sigh ; 
'Tis not the whole of life to live, 
Nor all of death to die." 

Of Montgomery's other favorite hymns, 
"Prayer is the soul's sincere desire," and 
"' What are these in bright array," I wish I 
had space to speak. But we must confine our- 
selves in this brief article to those songs of 
Zion which are full of longings for the better 
life and the better land. 

Of this class of hymns there is one which 
everybody knows and everybody sings, and yet 
almost nobody knows its authorship. For 
Sober t Seagrave is one of God's " hidden 
ones " from all celebrity in the world of letters. 



HYMNS OF LONGING FOR REST. 183 

He was a minister of the English Established 
Church, but being a caged dove there, he 
broke loose into Dissent. This unfettered 
spirit of his gave birth to that vigorous hymn 
whose uplift has carried us often into the 
higher climes • — 

•'Rise, my soul, and stretch thy wings, 
Thy better portion trace ; 
Rise from transitory things, 

Towards heaven, thy native place." 

Seagrave sang this one bird-song about the 
year 1748, but I never heard that he sang 
again. But his inspiring lyric is ringing yet, 
like the notes of a lark at the gates of heaven. 
Probably all the sermons preached that year 
throughout Christendom have not lifted so 
many souls towards the gates of pearl as that 
single melody of Robert Seagrave. We must 
all seek to become acquainted with him in our 
Father's house. 

Yes, and we shall all love to know Horatius 
Bonar there, and thank him for his many 
hymns, so full of heavenward aspiration. 
Another singer, from our own land too, who 



184 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

has lately flown above the clouds, sweet, 
sorrowful Phebe Gary. For she taught us all 
to sing, amid our care-burdens and our 

crosses, — 

*' One sweetly solemn thought 
Comes to me o'er and o'er : 
I am nearer home to-day 

Than I ever have been before." 



SUNSHINY CHMSTIANS. 



" A CHEERFUL heart doeth good like a 
-^^^ medicine." Our translation has it a 
" merry heart ; " but the word has got rather 
" dissipated" in these modern days, and savors 
of jollity, rather than wholesome heart-joys. 
Once the word had so discreet a meaning that 
the apostle inquires, " Is any one merry ? Let 
him sing psalms." It is the same Greek ex- 
pression as that one used by Paul in the 
midnight tempest, when he exhorted his 
fellow-voyagers to " be of good cheer." 

There is a cheerfulness that is a Christian 
duty ; yea, that is distinctly commanded to 
every heir of God. " Eejoice always ; and 
again I say, rejoice." This cheerfulness is 
not the mere effervescence of animal spirits. 
Nor is it born of the decanter or the dance. 
It depends in no wise on exernal circum- 



186 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

stances. Christian cheerfulness is that sun- 
shiny, hopeful, happy frame which comes 
from heart-health. Such a temper of mind 
doeth the body good " like a medicine." 
For many a lean dyspeptic is dying of sheer 
worry and peevishness. The acrid humors 
of the mind strike through, and disease the 
digestive organs. The medicine such a man 
wants is not to be found in the drug store. 
A good dose of divine grace, Avith a few 
grains of thankfulness, and a bracing walk 
on some labor of love to the poor, will do 
more to put healthy blood into his weazen 
skeleton than all the drugs of the apothe- 
cary. A " merry heart '' was about all the 
medicine that old Lyman Beecher ever took. 
Cheerfulness, be it remembered, is a tem- 
per of the soul, and not dependent on ex- 
ternal conditions. Some of the most miserable 
people we wot of are grumbling every day 
over porcelain and silver, and lay their 
wretched heads every night on embroidered 
pillows. The sunniest hearts I have ever 
found in my pastoral rounds have often 



SUNSHINY CHRISTIANS. 187 

been lodged in houses so poverty-stricken 
and obscure that even the tax collector never 
found them. They were people who had very 
little of this world, but a great deal of the next. 
They took short ^iews of this life, but long 
ones of the life to come. Living pretty much 
"from hand to mouth," they learn to trust 
God a great deal more than their prosperous 
brethren, who secretly trust — their own bank 
accounts and government bonds. 

The happiest heart I encounter in Brooklyn 
belongs to an aged cripple, who lives on char- 
ity in a fourth story. She is old and poor, and 
without relatives, and lost even the power of 
speech twenty years ago ! By dint of hard 
effort she can make a few words intelligible. 
But I never saw that withered face distorted 
by a frown ; and a few Sabbaths since, when 
she was carried in to the communion-table, I 
looked down from the pulpit into that old 
saint's countenance, and it " shone like the 
face of an angel." She lives every day on 
the sunny side of Providence, and feeds hun- 
grily on the promises. Jesus knows where 



188 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

she lives. He " oft-times resorts thither." 
She is one of his hidden ones. That old 
disciple will not have far to go when the 
summons comes from her Father's house. 
She lives near the gate now, and catches 
the odors and the music of that " marriage 
supper" for which she has her wedding gar- 
ment on. Would to God that some of the 
sour-spirited, morose, and melancholy Chris- 
tians of our acquaintance could drop in to 
that old woman's garret occasionally, and 
borrow a vial of her sunshine ! 

Those who cannot visit such an ante- 
chamber of heaven for themselves may 
enjoy a kindred satisfaction in reading the 
brief biography of old " Uncle Johnson," — 
a tract of twenty-five pages, published by the 
" Presbyterian Board " Johnson was a Vir- 
ginia negro, who died in Michigan at the 
almost incredible age of one hundred and 
twenty ! He never would have lasted so 
long if he had not — like Father Cleveland, 
of Boston — carried about with him that cheer- 
ful heart that doeth good like a medicine. 



SUNSHINY CHRISTIANS. 189 

One day, when he was at work in his gar- 
den, singing and shouting, his pastor looked 
over the fence and said : " Uncle, you seem 
very happy to-day." " Yes, massa. I'se just 
linking." " What are you thinking about 1 " 
" Oh ! I'se just tinking " (and the tears rolled 
down his black face) — " I'se tinking dat if de 
crumbs of joy dat fall from de Massa's table in 
dis world is so good, what will de great loaf in 
glory be ! I tells ye, sir, dar will be enuf and 
to spare up dar." 

Once Mr. F said to him, " Uncle John- 
son, why don't you get into our meetings once 
in a while ? " He answered : " Massa, I wants 
to be dere ; but I can't ^have myself." "You 
can't hehave ? " " Well, massa, ob late years 
de flesh is gettin' weak ; and when dey gwin 
to talk and sing about Jesus, I gins to fill up, 
and putty soon I has to holler^ and den some 
one'll say, ' Carry dat man out de door, he 
'sturbs de meetin.' " " But you should hold 
in till you get home." " O massa ! I can't 
hold in. I bust if I don't holler." (Would 
not it be a blessed thing for some prayer- 



190 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

meetings that are now dying of dignity if 
they could have such a "holler" to wake 
them out of their slumber?) This jubilant 
old negro lived in literal dependence on God. 
When a gift was made to him, he received it 
as if sent to him by Elijah's ravens. " When 
I wants any ting, I jes asks de Lord, and He is 
sure to send it ; sometimes afore I'se done 
askin', and den sometimes He holds back, 
jus' to see if I trust Him." One of the last 
things remembered of him was the message 
he gave to a minister who called to see him, 
when he was " waitin' for de chariot ob de 
Lord." " O massa ! " said he, " if you gets 
home afore I do, tell 'em to keep de table 
standin', for old Johnson is holdin' on his 
way. I'se bound to be dere." 

We have given so much of this article to 
a sketch of this sunny-souled pilgrim, not 
only because it might be new to most of 
our readers, but because such a living ex- 
ample of a '' merry heart" is more impres- 
sive than a sermon on cheerfulness. There 
are three or four '' recipes " for securing this 
sunshine in the soul. 



SUNSHINY CHRISTIANS. 191 

(1.) Look at your mercies with, hoth eyes; 
and at your troubles and trials with only 
half an eye. 

(2.) Study contentment. In these days of 
inordinate greed and self-indulgence, keep 
down the accursed spirit of grasping. What 
they dont have makes thousands wretched. 

(3.) Keep at some work of usefulness. 
Such men as "Uncle Vassar" and John 
Wanamaker are seldom troubled with the 
blues. Work for Christ brings heart-health. 

(4.) Keep your heart's window always 
open toward heaven. Let the blessed light 
of Jesus' countenance shine in. It will turn 
tears into rainbows. The author of " Nearer, 
my God, to Thee " has sweetly sung : — 

** He sendeth sun, he sendeth shower. 
Alike theyVe needful to the flower ; 
And joys and tears alike are sent. 
To give the soul fit nourishment. 
As conies to me or cloud or sun, ' 
Father ! Thy will, not mine, be done." 



THE BITTEE, WATEES SWEETENED. 



npHEEE days of torrid and thirsty travel 
-*■ from the Eed Sea brought the children 
of Israel to a fountain in the desert. All rush 
forward eagerly for a cooling draught. But 
alas ! the waters are so bitter that neither man 
nor beast can drink them. The disappointing 
spring is at once named by the murmuring 
Israelites, Marah^ which signifies the waters 
of " bitterness." 

To this day a fountain is known (about 
seventeen hours' travel from the " wells of 
Moses"), which the Arabs still call Howara. 
It is supposed by many geographers to be the 
identical spring of Marah, for its waters are 
exceedingly brackish. Prof. Stanley of Ox- 
ford mentions a spring a short distance south 
of How^ara which " was so bitter that neither 
men nor camels could drink it." 



THE BITTER WATERS SWEETENED. 193 

Beside one of these two fountains of bitter- 
ness stood the great host of thirsty Israel, with 
a terrible bitterness of disappointment in their 
hearts. They cry out against God. The 
deliverance at the Red Sea is forgotten. Past 
mercies are lost sight of, and present griefs 
seem to stir up all the acrid humors within 
them. They murmur against Moses, and ex- 
claim despairingly, " What shall we drink? " 

Fellow-pilgrims to the promised land, how 
exactly this scene tallies with our own experi- 
ences ! Right after happy days of prosperity 
and mercy, we come suddenly upon a Marah 
of bitter disappointment. We had set our 
hearts upon some favorite project. Perhaps 
we were going on a long-coveted tour, and had 
made all our arrangements. But the day for 
the departure finds us on a sick-bed ; and the 
medicine we swallow is not half so hard to 
take as the disappointment. Selfishness mur- 
murs and chafes under the trial. But pres- 
ently we begin to see that this bed of sickness 
lay right on the road to Canaan. We begin 
to talk with our own hearts, and to think over 



194 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

our past lives. We begin to pray with a new 
hunger of soul, and to read God's promises 
with new eyes. We make fresh covenant 
with God, that, if He will restore us to health, 
we will use it for Him, and will walk more 
closely with Him. We take up one precious 
promise after another, and drop it into the 
fountain of trial, and lo ! the waters begin to 
taste sweeter to us! Prayer becomes sweeter, 
and Christ's presence sweeter, and something 
within us w^hispers, " After all, is not this bet- 
ter for us than the journey to Europe or to the 
mountains ? Is it not good for me that I have 
been shut up here with Jesus ? " 

Now this was just what happened to angry 
and disappointed Israel. The Lord showed 
to Moses a tree, which, when he had cast it 
into the fountain, made the waters to become 
so sweet that the whole host drank of them 
with delight. I doubt whether God created 
that tree miraculously ; he simply " showed " 
it to Moses. So God does not create a Bible 
or a mercy-seat, or an atonement, or a jewel- 
casket of promises, or supplies of grace, espe- 



THE BITTER WATERS SWEETENED. 195 

cially for us. His Spirit simply opens our 
eyes to see them, and our hearts to enjoy 
them. He reveals to us the tree of healing 
which turns a draught of bitterness into a 
draught of holy joy. Thus, — 

*' Trials make the promise sweet, 
Trials give new life to prayer, 
Bring me to the Saviour^s feet, 
Lay me low, and keep me there." 

It is delightful to sit down beside a child of 
God who has in his hand a bitter cup of trial, 
but the " sweet breath of Jesus" has turned 
the bitterness into such a blessing that he 
" tastes the love " of Jesus in every drop. 

1 love to hear old Richard Baxter exclaim, 
after a life of constant suffering, " O my 
God ! I thank Thee for a bodily discipline of 
eight-and-fifty years." 

I love to sit down by Harlan Page and 
hear him say, " A bed of pain is a* precious 
place, when we have the presence of Christ. 
God does not send one unnecessary affliction. 
Lord ! I thank thee for suffering. I deserve it. 
I deserve death eternal. Let me not complain 



196 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

or dictate. I commit myself to thee, O Sav- 
iour, and to thy infinite love. I stop my 
mouth, and lie low beside thee ! " So God 
built up that blood-bought soul faster than 
disease was pulling down the frail tenement 
in which it dwelt. And through the rents 
heaven's glory shone in with rapturous radi- 
ance! 

I suppose there is rarely a Marah on earth 
more bitter than that which a father or mother 
reaches, when they bend over the coffin which 
holds the darling of their hearts and home. 
In all God's chemistry, is there any solvent 
which can sweeten such a draught of disap- 
pointment ? 

Yes, there is ! I have now before me a 
tear-moistened letter from my beloved brother 

W , the superintendent of the famous 

B Sabbath school. It was written by the 

waters of Marah. But mark how the angel 
of love is letting fall the sweetening leaves into 
the fountain. Brother W writes : — 

" Our darling Hattie was another of God's 
beautiful things, wise beyond her years, more 



THE BITTER WATERS SWEETENED. 197 

like a sister to us older ones, than like a little 
child. On the last Sabbath morning that she 
came to the breakfast table, she had, as usual, 
her text ; but it was a new one to her. ' Hide 
me under the shadow of Thy wing.' God 
heard the little tired body's prayer, and gath- 
ered the lamb to His bosom. We watched 
and watched beside her ; and when all others 
had given her up, I was still hopeful, and tak- 
ing the physician aside I inquired, ' Doctor, 
will she wake up, do you think] ' His reply 
almost killed me as he covered his face and 
sobbed the answer, ' No : not till she wakes in 
heaven ! ' O my brother ! I cannot tell you 
the anguish of that moment. I sat in the 
shadow of our great affliction, dumb. But 
Christ Jesus, the man of sorrows, was ac- 
quainted with my grief. He put his everlast- 
ing arm around me, — the friend that sticketh 
closer than a brother. Unto those that be- 
lieve, he is precious ; and never more so than 
when he brings heaven close up to us." 

Beautiful words of a victorious soul ! I 
send them through these pages as a bough 



198 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

from the tree of experience, to sweeten the 
fountain of bitterness beside which many of 
my readers may be sitting to-day. If God's 
grace can make the waters of trial so sweet 
on earth, what will the fountain he in heaven f 



THE GREAT HYMN OF PROVIDENCE. 



A CORRESPONDENT expresses some sur- 
•^ -^ prise that in sketching the biographies 
of many of the foremost favorites in our Chris- 
tian hymnology, no notice had yet been taken 
of Cowper's masterpiece. Certainly it was not 
from lack of loving admiration for a hymn 
which justly ranks among the half-dozen sub- 
limest compositions in the whole range of 
sacred song. But it is not easy to say any 
thing new about so familiar a production. Let 
us briefly sketch its remarkable origin, for the 
information of those who have often sung it 
through tears, and yet never knew that it was 
born of tears and trials from the most gifted 
poetic soul in Britain. 

About the beginning of the year 1773 Cow- 
per was residing at OIney, on the borders of 
Huntingdonshire. He had recovered from 



200 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

the awful gloom of that partial insanity which 
had cast its fearful cloud over his early man- 
hood. Close by him lived and preached that 
robust man and minister of Christ, John New- 
ton. They became as intimate as David and 
Jonathan ; and it was from their very dissimi- 
larity that there grew up such a loving fellow- 
ship between the bluff and brawny converted 
sailor, and the timid melancholy poet. New- 
ton brought to Cowper just what he wanted 
— a devout spiritual guide, and a soul-cheer- 
ing companion. 

Between the two was originated and com- 
pleted the rich and heaven-born Olney Hymns. 
To this famous collection John Newton con- 
tributed two hundred and eighty-six hymns — 
and Cowper added sixty-two. But the smaller 
contribution proved to be the more precious 
in weight of metal. iVmong Newton's many 
hymns are a few which God's people will 
always love to sing. But to that collection 
Cowper's genius brought those two gems of 
devotion, " O for a closer walk with God," 
and " There is a fountain filled with blood." 



THE GREAT HYMN OF PROVIDENCE. 201 

It yet remained for him to contribute one more 
— and one which ranks as the grandest Hymn 
of Providence in our mother tongue. 

For seven years Cowper had been compara- 
tively cheerful. The sun shone and the birds 
sang in^ his spiritual sky. But a foreboding 
impression of another attack of insanity began 
to creep over him. The presentiment grew 
deeper. The clouds gathered fast. It is said 
that he even meditated self-destruction, and 
left his quiet cottage to drown himself in the 
neighboring river Ouse ! Whether this state- 
ment be true or not, it is certain that he went 
forth from his house under the pall of an over- 
whelming gloom. Just while these black 
clouds of despair were darting their vivid 
lightnings into his suffering soul, the grandest 
inspiration of his life broke upon him, and he 
began to sing out these wonderful words : — 

' ' God moves in a mysterious way, 
His wonders to perform ; 
He plants His footsteps in the sea, 
And rides upon the storm." 

For several years Cowper's splendid intel- 



202 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

lect was to be under a total eclipse. The 
penumbra was already darkening its disc. But 
in fuU view of the impending calamity, the 
inspired son of song chanted forth those 
strains of holy cheer : — 

*' Judge not the Lord by feeble sense, 
But trust Him for His grace ; 
Behind a frowning providence. 
He hides a smiling face." 

Cowper never could have sung that sublime 
anthem of victory except under the immediate 
inspiration of the " power from on high." It 
was to be his last song for many years. The 
storm was coming, but Cowper's eye of faith 
saw Jehovah " riding above the storm." The 
heavens gathered blackness, but the ineffable 
smile of his Divine Lord lurked behind the 
tempest. The " bud " of sorrow which was 
springing fast did have " a bitter taste," — the 
very wormwood was not more bitter, — but 
oh, how " sweet the flower " that it unfolded ! 

This matchless hymn of providence which 
God put into the soul of His afflicted servant 
has been a " song in the night'' to milUons of 



THE GREAT HYMN OF PROVIDENCE. 203 

His people when under the discouraging clouds 
of adversity. A beloved friend in the city of St. 
Johns tells me that during the terrible famine 
in Lancashire, England, the work ran low at 
one of the cotton-mills. Occupation and 
wages grew less day by day. At length the 
overseer met the half-starved operatives, and 
announced to them the fatal tidings, " There 
is no more work^ Flickering hope went out 
in black despair. One delicate sweet girl — 
thin and pale with suffering — arose amid the 
heart-broken company and began to sing the 
cheering words she had learned in the Sunday 
school : — 

" Ye fearful saints, fresh courage take ! 
The clouds ye so much dread 
Are big with mercy, and shall break 
In blessings on your head. 

*' Bhnd unbelief is sure to err, 
And scan His work in vain ; 
God is His own interpreter. 
And He will make it plain." 

A sunburst of hope came over the despair- 
ing company when the sweet strain was ended. 
It proved a prophecy. For the proprietors 



204 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

determined to struggle on a while longer, — 
and ere long that mill was running again at 
full work. This scene was a parable. It had 
its counterpart in the darkest hours of our 
nation's conflict, when w^e once heard Cowper's 
sublime lines quoted in a vast patriotic meet- 
ing, amid tears and thunders of applause. 
Thousands of God's children have chanted 
these stanzas as they walked through " valleys 
of death-shade." Blessings and honor and 
praises to Him who giveth us such songs in 
the night ! 

Such was the history of Cowper's unrivalled 
hymn of providence. We close this biography 
of an old and familiar hymn, by presenting a 
new and exquisite evening hymn, which most 
of our readers never saw before. It is to 

Christ the Healer. 

At even, ere the sun was set, 
The sick, O Lord, around Thee lay ; 

Oh in what divers pains they met. 
Oh in what joy they went away ! 

Once more, 'tis eventide, and we, 

Oppressed with various ills, draw near; 



THE GREAT HYMN OF PROVIDENCE. 205 

What if Thy form we cannot see, 

We know and feel that Thou art here. 

O Saviour Christ ! our woes dispel, 

For some are sick, and some are sad, 
And some have never loved Thee well ; 

And some have lost the love they had. 

And some have found the world is vain, 
Yet from the world they break not free ; 

And some have friends, who givd them pain. 
Yet have not sought a Friend in Thee. 

And none, O Lord ! have perfect rest. 

For none are wholly free from sin ; 
And they who fain would serve Thee best 

Are conscious most of wrong within. 

O Saviour Christ ! Thou too art man. 
Thou hast been troubled, tempted, tried. 

Thy kind but searching glance can scan 
The very wounds that shame would hide. 

Thy touch has still its ancient power. 

No word from Thee can fruitless fall ; 
Here in this solemn evening hour, 

And in Thy mercy, heal us all. 



CHRIST IN THE NIGHT-STOEM. 



T^HE third watch of the night had nearly 
passed. Eor many weary hours the dis- 
ciples have been toiling at the oars through 
the tempest. But all the strength of the fish- 
ermen's brawny arms can scarcely push for- 
ward the little boat against the angry waves 
which smite the bow like a sledge. Peter and 
John — who were brought up on this lake of 
Galilee — had never seen a rougher night. 

There is no compass on board, and no light- 
house on the beach. Through the thick dark- 
ness the little bark is invisible to human eye. 
If Peter's anxious household had looked out 
from their door in Capernaum on that awful 
night, they could not have seen* a boat's-length 
from the shore ; or, if they had set the olive- 
lamp in the window, it might not have been 



CHRIST IN THE NIGHT- STORM. 207 

discovered by the toiling rowers in the smack. 
It is a fearful night to be out in ; but there is 
One Eye that beholds them from the hills of 
Gadara. Jesus watches them ! 

Many of my readers may be, just now, in a 
fearful night-storm of trouble. One is in the 
darkness of a mysterious providence. An- 
other is under a tempest of commercial dis- 
aster. He has lost the "rigging" of his 
prosperit}^ ; his canvas is torn to shreds, and 
his pride has come down as a top-sail comes 
down in a hurricane. Another one is toiling 
with the oars against a head-sea of poverty. 
The guiding rudder of a dear and trusted 
friend has been swept away by death. Still 
another one is in a midnight of spiritual de- 
spondency, and the promise-stars seem to be all 
shut out under gloomy clouds. My friend 

A is making a hard voyage, with her 

brood of fatherless children to provide for. 
Friend B has a poor intemperate hus- 
band on board \vith her ; and Brother C 's 

little bark hardly rises out of one wave of dis- 
aster before another sweeps over it. There are 



208 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

whole boat-loads of disciples who are " toiling 
at rowing" over a dark sea of trouble. But 
Jesus watches them ! His eye of love discerns 
every single child of his adoption over all the 
wide sea of human experience. 

The hour of the Christian's extremity is the 
hour of Christ's opportunity. At the right 
moment Christ makes his appearance to the 
tempest-tost disciples on Genesareth. For 
we are told that " in the fourth watch of the 
night Jesus came to them, walking on the 
sea ! " We do not wonder that the sublime 
and sudden miracle astounded them. We do 
not wonder that, as the ghost-like form draws 
nearer and nearer through the darkness, the 
awe-struck mariners throw down the oars, and 
cry out, " See ! see ! it is a spirit ! it is a 
spirit ! " But straightway Jesus speaks unto 
them, saying, "Be of good cheer ; it is I; be 
not afraid." In an instant their fears vanish. 
Jesus comes near to them. He steps into the 
boat, and " the wind ceased''' The overjoyed 
disciples fall at his feet, and gratefully exclaim, 
"Truly, truly, thou art the Son of God ! " 



CHRIST IN THE NIGHT-STORM. 209 

Now, good friends, who are breasting a 
midnight sea of trouble, open the eye of faith, 
and see that form on the waves ! It is not an 
apparition ; it is not a fiction of priestly fan- 
cies, as the scoffing sceptic^^has often insin- 
uated. It is Jesus himself ! It is one who 
was himself a " man of sorrows." It is one 
who has been tried on all points as we are, 
and yet without sin. It is the Divine Sufferer 
who says, " It is I ; be of good cheer." Christ 
comes to you as a sympathizing Saviour. He 
comes as a cheering, consoling Saviour. His 
sweet assurance is, "Lo! I am with you. 
Fear not; I have redeemed thee. I have 
called thee by my name. Thou art mine. 
When thou passest through the waters, I will 
be with thee ; and they shall not overflow 
thee." Behold that Saviour ! Receive him 
into the ship. No vessel can sink or founder 
with Jesus on board. No struggling soul, no 
struggling church, no struggling work of re- 
form, ever went down when the Son of God 
had set his divine foot within it. Let the 
storms rage, if God sends them. Christ can 



210 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

pilot you through. Let the midnight hours of 
darkness come, if Jesus only comes through 
them with the hailing signal, It is I ! There 
may be a night coming soon on some of you, 
when heart and flesh shall fail you, and the 
only shore ahead is the shore of eternity. If 
Jesus is only in the bark, be not afraid. Like 
glorious John Wesley, you will be able to cry 
aloud in the dying hour, " Best of all, Christ 
is with me ! best of all, Christ is with me ! " 

11. I wish to bring home the teachings of 
this inspiring scene on Galilee to those who 
are in a mid-sea of convictions of sin and 
troublings of conscience. The storm of divine 
threatenings against sin is breaking upon you. 
You acknowledge that you are guilty, and 
you hear the rumbling thunder of that divine 
declaration, " The soul that sinneth shall die." 
Alarming passages from God's Word foam up 
around your distressed and anxious soul. You 
cannot quell this storm, or escape out of it. 
Toiling at the oars of self-righteousness has 
not sent you a furlong nearer to the " desired 
haven." You have found by sore experience 



CHRIST IN THE NIGHT-STORM. 211 

that sin gives no rest, and that your oars are 
no match against God's just and broken Law. 

Friend, give me your ear ! Listen ! There 
is a voice that comes sounding through the 
storm. Hearken to it ! It is a voice of infi- 
nite love. '' It is I!'' What voice is that? 
It is the same voice that spoke Galilee into a 
calm ; that said to Jairus's dead daughter, 
Maiden^ arise ! that awoke Lazarus from the 
rocky sepulchre of Bethany ; the same voice 
that sweetly said to a praying penitent, " Thy 
sins be forgiven thee." That omnipotent 
voice says to you, " Be of good cheer ; it is 
I ! " It is I, who am one with the Father. 
It is I, who so loved you that I gave myself 
for you. It is I, who came into the world to 
seek and to save the lost. My blood cleanseth 
from all sin. I am able to save to the utter- 
most. Whosoever believeth in me shall not 
perish, but shall have everlasting life. 

Troubled sinner, let me assure you of this 
one thing ! If you will only admit this wait- 
ing, willing, loving Jesus into your tempest- 
tost soul, the " wind will cease." All will be 



212 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

well. Christ can allay the storm. Receive 
him. Christ can take away your guilt. Re- 
ceive him. Christ can forgive you. Receive 
him. Open your whole soul to him in peni- 
tent, humble faith ; welcome him with grateful 
trust ; do all he asks ; surrender the helm to 
him ; and you can then feel as the rescued 
disciples did when they knelt down in the 
drenched bottom of their little boat, and cried 
out, " Truly thou art the Son of God ! " 

An intelligent merchant friend of mine, who 
was once in a night-storm of anxiety and 
haunted by the terrors of a guilty conscience, 
writes as follows : — 

" I have a right to speak about faith in 
Christ. Well, I have tried him these thirty 
years ; and I assure you that, though I once 
felt as you feel, and feared as you fear, my 
doubts and fears were given to the winds from 
the hour I gave my confidence to Christ. I 
heard his gentle entreaty, ' Ho, every one 
that thirsteth, come ye to the waters ; ' and I 
came. I heard his invitation, ' Come unto 
me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and 



CHRIST m THE NIGHT-STORM. 213 

I will give you rest/ I came, and he gave 
me rest and peace, and joys innumerable and 
immeasurable, in comparison with which all 
that I had ever known before was but the 
bubble which bursts when you seek to grasp 
it. All this he will do for you. He longs 
to do it ; but first he must have your submis- 
sion and trust : this is the unalterable condi- 
tion." 

All that this merchant did was to recognize 
Christ and receive Christ. As soon as Jesus 
came into his soul, the wind ceased. The 
clouds broke away. And now he is going 
joyfully on his life-voyage with Jesus in the 
vessel. So may you, if you will cry, — 

'* Jesus ! Lover of my soul, 

Let me to Thy bosom fly, 
While the billows near me roll. 

While the tempest still is high : 
Hide me, oh ! my Saviour, hide 

Till the storm of life is past, 
Safe into the haven guide. 

Oh ! receive my soul at last ! " 



THE JEWELS IN THE CUP. 



nr^HERE was a fine touch of poetry as well 
■^ as of Christian philosophy in the cheer- 
ful words of a young servant of Christ who 
was near his last hour. " When I have the 
most pain in my body," said he, " I have the 
most peace in my soul. I do not doubt but 
that there is love in the bottom of the cup, 
though it is terribly bitter in the mouth." 
It was at the bottom of the cup that God 
had placed the precious blessing ; and it was 
needful that he drink the whole bitter draught 
in order to reach it. 

"The cup which my Father hath given me, 
shall I not drink it ? " This was the submis- 
sive utterance of the Man of Sorrows in Geth- 
semane. Thousands of his followers have 
faltered out the same words through their 



THE JEWELS IN THE CUP. 215 

tears, when a heart-breaking trial was trying 
their faith to the utmost. But the " sweet 
breath of Jesus has been on the cup," and 
made it more palatable. And the lips that 
tasted the draught of sorrow have uttered 
such prayers as they had not made, and 
could not make in seasons of prosperity. 

The richest jewels of grace often lie at 
the bottom of sorrow's cup. Jesus could 
not push from Him the bitter agony of 
Calvary: redemption was at the bottom of 
that cup. He could not save Himself and 
yet save a guilty world of sinners. Either 
He must drink the cup of suffering, or we 
must drink " the wine of the wrath of God." 

Looking down into the draught of sorrow 
which God mingles often for His children, 
what precious jewels glisten in the depths ! 
Promises are there, sparkling like pearls. 
" As thy day so shall thy strength be." 
" Whom I love, I chasten." " My grace 
is sufficient for thee." What afflicted child 
of God would fling from him a cup which 
contains such priceless gifts as these ? 



216 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

Graces sparkle too in the goblet of grief 
which Divine love mingles for those who 
are to become more " perfect through suf- 
fermg." How lustrous shines the grace of 
Patience ! I used to go occasionally, and 
read the Bible to an invalid who had been 
tortured for forty years with excruciating 
pains ; and her sweet words of submission 
w^ere the commentary, I used to go home 
ashamed of my own impatience under paltry 
vexations. She never asked God to take 
her cup of suffering from her : in it were 
her jewels, — patience, meekness, and joy in 
the Holy Ghost. 

Experience of the love of Jesus is an- 
other of the pearls dropped into the draught 
which is mingled for his chosen ones. Christ 
has his choice ones. Dr. Arnot says that the 
true meaning of the text " many are called, 
but few are chosen," is this, — " many are 
called to be Christians, but only a few 
are choice'' Only a portion of all the flock 
are " called and choice and faithful." This is 
certainly a truth, — whether it be the true 
meaning of the Bible text or not. 



THE JEWELS IN THE CUP. 217 

These choice Christians are often chosen 
for affliction, and become more choice, and 
excellent through the regimen of severe 
trial. There is an experience of the love 
of Jesus which they gain in their hours of 
bereavement, or poverty, or hardships, which 
they never could have acquired in any other 
way. The " love in the bottom of the cup " 
was only to be reached by drinking the sor- 
rows which held the jewel. The school of 
suifering graduates rare scholars. To the 
disciples in that school it is often given to 
*' know the love of Jesus which passeth 
knowledge." Suffering Christian ! be not in 
haste to quit thy Master's school ; thou art 
fitting for the High School of Heaven. Push 
not away peevishly thy cup of sorrow ; for the 
sparkling diamond of Christ's love for thee is 
in the draught he gives thee to drink. 



10 



WHEEE IS YOUR PLACE? 



A PLACE for every man, and every man 
-^ ^ in his place ! This motto is as good 
for Christ's Church as it was for the army 
during the war. But what is every Chris- 
tian's right place? 

We answer that it is the one for which God 
made him, and for which the Holy Spirit con- 
verted him. To mistake it is a sad blunder ; 
to desert it is a disgrace. The Bible acknowl- 
edges that God made His servants for some 
especial " niche ; " for it says, " Having then 
gifts differing according to the grace that is 
given us, let us wait on our ministering ; or 
he that teacheth on teaching ; or he that 
exhorteth on exhortation ; he that giveth, let 
him do it with simplicity ; he that ruleth, with 
diligence ; he that showeth mercy, with cheer- 



WHERE IS YOUR PLACE? 219 

fulness." The principle here laid down is 
that every man or woman who loves Jesus 
should select and should fill that post of duty 
for which his or her gifts have fitted them. 
But " let no man neglect the gift that is in 
him." 

Some men — like Spurgeon and Newman 
Hall and Bishop Simpson — were created for 
the pulpit. God gave them clear heads, warm 
hearts, strong lungs and eloquent tongues, and 
a hunger for saving souls. To possess such 
gifts is a clear call to the ministry. And thou- 
sands of humbler preachers who cannot attract 
Spurgeon's crowds are yet as clearly called to 
the ministry of the Word as the London Boan- 
erges was himself. But the vainglorious 
creature who cannot attract an audience ex- 
cept by sensational " clap-trap," or by Bar- 
num-ish advertisements, was certainly never 
called of God to the sacred ministry. He may 
draw auditors ; but he commonly draws them 
away from places where they would be more 
profited. 

Suppose a man or woman feel — after deep 



220 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

prayer and self-examination — that God has 
not called them to the pulpit ; what then ? 
Must they be silent] Are all the speaking 
gifts of the pious lawyer, or doctor, or mer- 
chant, or mechanic to run to waste ] No, 
verily ! Let such proclaim the glad tidings 
of Christ, and the story of their own Christian 
experience in the prayer-meeting, or the mis- 
sion-school, or the cottage conference meeting, 
or wherever they can find souls to plead with. 
How successfully this lay-labor may be made, 
let such men as Harlan Page and Richard 
Weaver and George H. Stuart and D. L. 
Moody and John Wanamaker bear witness. 
Let the powerful lay-preaching heard every 
day in " Fulton Street " answer. Some of 
the best discourses I have ever heard were 
but five or ten minutes long, and were deliv- 
ered in my own prayer-meeting. Christian 
lawyers ought to do more of this tongue- 
work. As a class, they are too silent in our 
meetings and Sunday schools. God is open- 
ing a wide field for laymen to act on '^ picket- 
duty " and as skirmishers and sharp-shooters 
in the spiritual warfare. 



WHERE IS YOUR PLACE ] 221 

What our churches most need (next to the 
baptism of the Holy Ghost) is the develop- 
ment of all the members. So much is thrown 
upon the ministry that some of us can hardly 
catch a spare hour for our own family and 
fireside. The Spurgeons and John Halls and 
Guthries are being ground to death by over- 
work. A city pastor is often expected to pre- 
pare three sermons or lectures, to visit the 
flock, to see the sick, to bury the dead, and to 
act on a dozen committees and to make two 
or three speeches all in a single week! The 
church becomes Dr. Tyng's church, or Mr. 
Beecher's church, or Dr. Crosby's church, or 
some other man's church, — instead of being 
the people's church, with some gifted man as 
its overseer and pastor. 

Now I love to work exceedingly; but not 
one whit more than I love to see my congre- 
gation work. And no man in my flock has 
any more right to turn his spiritual work over 
upon me than he has a right to send me to 
market for him, or to cook or eat his dinner 
for him. He needs his work as much as I 



222 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

need mine. In revival-times the whole church 
is alive and busy. But where and when did 
the Master ever give a " furlough " to three- 
fourths of our people to quit the ranks just as 
soon as a revival- campaign is over ? 

A Christian who is keen for work will soon 
find his place. If he is " apt to teach," he or 
she will soon gather the Sabbath-school class, 
and will be there, Bible in hand, every Sun- 
day, even though the rain is spattering on the 
pavements. Commend me to the teacher who 
wears a '' water-proof," and always consults 
conscience sooner than the barometer ! 

Whoever has the gift of song should join 
God's great choir, and sing at every religious 
service. The owner of a good voice must give 
account for that voice at the day of judgment. 
We never shall have genuine congregational 
singing until every redeemed child of Christ 
sings from duty, and consecrates the gift of 
music to the Lord. Those who expect to sing 
in heaven had better practise here. 

Tract-distribution is going too much out of 
fashion. It is a blessed and heaven-honored 



WHERE IS YOUR PLACE? 223 

agency for doing good. Every one who has 
some spare time and a tongue and a little 
pious tact can go out with a bundle of tracts 
to the abodes of ignorance and irreligion. 

Those who cannot exhort or teach in a 
Sunday school, or distribute tracts, can at least 
live for Jesus at home, and come and join in 
the prayers of the prayer-meeting. The 
oldest, the timidest, the least gifted can do 
surely as much as this. Every one, too, can 
give something when the contribution-box is 
passed. The gift of a " cup of cold water '' 
in Christ's name has its reward. Every one 
whom Jesus saves has a place assigned to 
them in the vineyard. An idle Christian is 
a monster ! 

Friend ! have you found your place ? 



CHRIST A SERVANT. 



'TpHERE is one character in which Chris- 
■^ tians too seldom think of their Divine 
Redeemer/ It is that of a disinterested ser- 
YANT, ever serving our highest interests. We 
call ourselves Christ's servants. Do we con- 
stantly think of him as ours ? 

At the last supper, we read that Jesus rose 
from the table and laid aside his robe. He 
takes a towel, and girds himself after the man- 
ner of an attendant in a guest chamber. Pour- 
ing water into a basin, he washes the disciples' 
feet, and wipes them with the towel where- 
with he is girded. After the surprising act of 
self-humiliation is over, he says to them, 
" Know ye what I have done to you ? Ye call 
me Master and Lord ; ye say well, for so I am. 
If I then, your Lord and Master, have washed 



CHRIST A SERVANT. 225 

your feet, ye ought also to wash one another's 
feet. For I have given you an example that 
ye should do as I have done unto you." 

Then he tells his disciples for what paltry 
distinctions the Gentiles and the worldlings 
crave. But they were to aim at a nobler, sub- 
limer supremacy, — the supremacy of disinter- 
ested love, and devotion to the wants of others. 
" Let him who would be chiefest among you 
become servant of all'' The feet of his fol- 
lowers were scarcely dry from the washing he 
had given them, as he says, " I am among you 
as he that serveth^ 

Run your eye, my brother, over the whole 
earthly career of our blessed Lord, and you 
will find in it a beautiful illustration of the 
truth that the loftiest post of honor is the low- 
liest post of service. Every word, every act, is 
inspired by disinterested love. He conde- 
scends to teach the most ignorant, for they 
have the deepest need of light. He conde- 
scends to feed the hungry poor out of his 
miraculous basket. He condescends to sit at 
meat with despised publicans, to heal way- 

10* 



226 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

side beggars and outcast lepers, the children 
of poor, heart-broken mothers, and the ser- 
vants in noblemen's kitchens. More than one 
fallen woman, whom most parents would have 
thrust out of doors, he allows to come into the 
sunshine of his presence, and does not let them 
go until they are penitent and pardoned. And 
so all through that three years' pilgrimage of 
love, — instructing the benighted, comforting 
the afflicted, pardoning the guilty, healing the 
sick, stooping to wash disciples' feet and to 
cleanse their still more polluted hearts, — Jesus 
is everywhere the " servant of all." The years 
of penitent, self-denying service culminate in 
the grandest, most stupendous, and sublime 
service of all, — the service of suffering on the 
cross of Calvary ! Oh ! self-indulgent Chris- 
tian, who art unwilling to lift a finger to relieve 
a fellow-being or undo his burthen, look on the 
wondrous spectacle of an incarnate God stoop- 
ing to the lowliest offices of love, — bearing- 
poverty, and ignominy, and toil, — bearing the 
curse of the broken law, — bearing your sins 
in his bleeding body on the cross, — look 



CHRIST A SERVANT. 227 

at this, and hide your selfish head in 
shame ! 

Nor did the service of our Divine servant 
end with the cross and the new tomb in the 
garden. When he ascended to heaven, he 
only ascended to new departments of service 
for us. He ever liveth there to make ' inter- 
cession for his people. He is our "friend at 
court." He is our advocate to plead our suit. 
He hears our complaints, and gives a ready 
ear to the faintest prayer which the feeblest 
faith breathes forth in its closet. 

Does he not gird himself as with a towel, to 
wash away our impurities'? Not once only, 
but constantly. One cleansing of a soul at the 
time of regeneration will no more keep a 
Christian for ever pure than a single ablution 
of his face or form would make his body clean 
for a life-time. The world soils our souls 
every day. Each unholy thought, each angry 
word, each act of deceit, each covetous touch 
of gold, each insincere, unbelieving prayer, 
each cowardly desertion of duty, leaves an 
ugly spot. " Create in me a clean heart " is an 



228 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

every hour's prayer for a Christian's whole life. 
And he who girded a towel about him, and 
washed his disciples' feet from the dust of 
Jerusalem's streets, is ever beside us, ready to 
w^ash away the moral defilement which our 
daily walk on the world's highways brings 
upon our souls. 

How many other services, too, our Saviour is 
rendering us ! When starved on husks, he 
gives us the bread of life. When faint in 
spirit, he brings us into his orchard, whose 
apples of delight cause our lips to sing. 
Many an obscure saint in a smoky hovel has 
yet dwelt in the King's banqueting-house. 
The holy Rutherford, when in prison for 
Christ's sake, testifies that his prison-cell was 
" the King's wine-cellar" to his thirsty soul, in 
which every taste of the divine love only made 
him more hungry for the " supper-time " in 
heaven. He says, " I get sweet tastings of 
my Lord's comforts ; but the cause of that is 
not that our steward, Christ Jesus, is niggard 
and narrow-hearted, but because our stomachs 
are so weak, and our souls are narrow ; but 



CHRIST A SERVANT. 229 

the great feast is coming, when our hearts 
shall be enlarged to take in the fulness of the 
marriage supper of the Lamb." 

Time would fail us to tell in how many ways 
the loving Jesus serves his people, — as their 
physician, their protector, and their guide 
through the valley of the death-shade. And 
one of the great practical teachings of Christ's 
sublime, self-denying service for us is that the 
lowliest post of service is the loftiest post of 
honor. If Jesus was a servant, who shall be 
ashamed to serve? 

Why is it that so many professed Christians 
" feel above " undertaking humble work for 
God and humanity? We have heard of a 
minister of Christ complaining that his station 
was " beneath his talents " ! As if the soul of 
a beggar were beneath the genius of a Paul ! 
Some are unwilling to enter a mission-school, 
or to distribute tracts through a poor district, 
strangely forgetting that their Divine Master 
was himself a missionary. 

Have such never learned that the towel 
wherewith Jesus wiped his disciples' feet out- 



230 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

shone the purple that wrapped Caesar's limbs ? 
Do they not know that the post of honor is the 
post of service] "My seat in the Sunday 
school is higher than my seat in the Senate," 
said an eminent Christian statesman. When 
we take the lowliest place of sacred service, 
we find ourselves in the best society, — in the 
society of mothers serving their children, of 
patriots serving their country, of pastors serv- 
ing their flocks, and of One who is ever the 
gracious servant of his people. Heaven is but 
a higher sphere of service. For in that realm 
of unwearying activity and blissful worship we 
read that " they serve God day and night in 
his temple ; his name is written on theh fore- 
heads ; " and " they follow the Lamb whereso- 
ever he goeth, and he leadeth them to living 
fountains of water." 



THE DAY OF SMALL THINGS. 



nr^HE most successful toilers are those who 
-*■ know best how to serve God in " small 
things." The Almighty never " despises the 
day of small things," or else he would not put 
his mighty oaks into acorns, or his golden 
grain-crops into little seed-bags. 

1. Nearly all the greatest and best things 
had their feeble beginnings. The Mississippi 
begins as a rivulet ; the splendid suspension 
bridge at Niagara first went over the deep 
chasm as a mere kite-string. And the noblest, 
holiest Christian lives had their origin in some 
word faithfully spoken, or in the reading of a 
tract, or the offering of a broken and brief 
prayer, or in a solemn resolution to quit favor- 
ite sins and yield to Jesus. One sentence 
seems to have brought Peter and John to fol- 



232 THOUGHT-HIVES. 



low Christ. One sentence converted the jailer 
of Philippi. Now if every Christian life 
sprouted out of the act of a single hour, and 
was probably the result of some humble 
agency, then it is a sin and a folly to " despise 
the day of small things." 

Cases to illustrate this truth thicken in our 
memory. A godly woman spoke kindly to her 
maid-servant about her soul : the gardener 
overheard the conversation through a hedge, 
and was himself convicted of his sins. Stray 
arrows often hit the mark. 

The late Dr. William Wisner once stopped 
on a hot summer day at a Berkshire farm- 
house for a glass of water. He talked faith- 
fully with the young lady who gave him the 
refreshing draught, and directed her to the 
" living water." Long years afterwards, a 
middle-aged woman introduced herself to Dr. 

W on a steamboat, and thanked him for 

the plain, kind word that brought her to the 
Saviour. 

Harlan Page, coming early to a meeting, 
found a stranger sitting there, and politely 



THE DAY OF SMALL THINGS. 233 

spoke to him. The conversation went on 
until the man — who said that " Christians 
had always kept him at arms length " before 
— was melted into penitence. 

On the last day of the year 1867, I met a 
man of fifty in the streets, and said to him, 
'' Had not you and I better begin the new 
year with a new life ? " That simple remark 
set him to thinking, and resulted in his con- 
version. 

The lesson of all these cases, and of innu- 
merable others like them, is that the most 
effectual way to save sinners is to use the day 
of small things^ and seize our opportunities. 
Nearly all revivals start with a single man or 
woman. One live coal can kindle a great 
flame. 

2. There is another view of this matter. 
As the usefulness of a Christian grows out of 
Httle deeds well done, so the influence of many 
Christians is terribly poisoned by little sins. 
Alas ! how great sinners we may be in small 
things ! Little irritations of look and man- 
ner ; httle meannesses in our daily dealings ; 



234 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

little fibs and insincerities of speech ; little 
jealousies and spites ; little neglects of kind 
acts we might do, — all these are the " little 
foxes " that have spoiled many a goodly vine. 
Pile up enough tiny snow-flakes on a rail-way 
track, and they will blockade the most power- 
ful locomotive. So I verily believe that the 
aggregate sum of Christians' daily inconsis- 
tencies and neglects of duty often block up a 
revival, and stay the progress of Christ's king- 
dom. Jesus Christ laid great emphasis on 
" keeping the least of his commandments." 
That was an awfully mischievous spark that 
lighted Chicago into a blaze ; but it was once 
only a spark ! 

3. This brings me to say to the unconverted, 
It is a fatal mistake to think that any wilful 
sin is a trifle. If you are lost, my dear friend, 
it is not likely that one huge crime like Judas', 
or Pilate's, or Ananias', will sink you to perdi- 
tion. It will be the sum of your daily sins 
left unrepented of, the aggregate of thou- 
sands of offences against God's law and God's 
love. I pray you, do not say, " Oh, this is not 



THE DAY OF SMALL THINGS. 235 

much ! " No sin is a trifle. No sin is harm- 
less. In Sudbrook Park, England, a natural- 
ist saw a small worm boring into the bark of 
a stately sycamore-tree. '' If that worm is 
let alo7ieJ' said he, " it will kill the tree." The 
experiment was tried. The next year the 
leaves turned yellow, and the year after the 
tree was a skeleton. Now if one sin is so 
deadly, what must a lifetime of sin be ? 

My last thought is that life is a series of 
steps. Each step counts. Coming to Jesus 
is a single step. It may be the work of a 
moment. It may turn on a small pivot. And 
you will never come to Christ, or never reach 
heaven, while you continue to " despise the day 
of small things." 



THE SUCCESSFUL PASTOE. 



" 'THHE sermon always sounds better to me 
-^ on Sunday when I have had a shake of 
my minister's hand during the week." This 
was a very natural remark of a very sensible 
parishioner. We always listen with a more 
open-hearted readiness to every thing which 
falls from the lips of one who has won our 
friendship or showed us a grateful attention. 
Even the instructions from God's Word, and 
the precious invitations of the gospel, come 
more acceptably from one we love than from 
him who treats us with indifference or neglect. 
After all, the great power of a good pastor 
over his people is heart-'power. Intellectual 
brilliancy may awaken the pride of a congre- 
gation in their minister ; but it is his affection- 
ate sympathy and personal kindnesses to them 



THE SUCCESSFUL PASTOR. 237 

that awaken their love for him and keep it 
burning. 

When a pastor has gained a strong hold on 
the affections of his people, he may preach 
ever so pointedly against popular sins, and the 
people will receive his unpalatable truths with- 
out flinching, or hurling a reproach at him. 
On the other hand, we have known fearless 
denouncers of wrong-doing to be ousted from 
their pulpits, simply because the radical thun- 
derers had no grip on the affections of their 
flock. The sermon against rum-drinking or 
dishonesty was a mere pretext for blackballing 
him : the secret reason was that they did not 
love the man. Conscience sometimes requires 
a faithful ambassador of Christ to put a severe 
strain on the "tether" that binds him to his 
pastorate : at such times it is a happy thing 
for him if that tether is securely fastened to a 
hundred family-altars and firesides. The great 
mass of the ministry are not men of genius ; 
and, even if they were, they could not afford 
to dispense with that heart-power which can 
only be acquired by personal kindness and 
sympathy with their people. 



238 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

We could name a certain successful pastor 
who for a quarter of a century has kept his 
church full and prosperous : he has sided with 
most of the moral reforms of the day, and 
his vineyard has been irrigated with many a 
copious revival-shower. Yet he never could 
be accused of brilliant talents or profound 
learning. He has, in their stead, a warm 
heart, good sense, tact, winning manners, and 
fervent piety. He is not a powerful preach- 
er, but he is a powerful pastor. He knows 
where all his congregation live, and he visits 
them. He never comes as a stranger or in 
a ceremonious manner; if the parlor is cold, 
or locked up for repairs, he drops into the 
nursery, takes a youngster on his lap, chats 
with the mother, inquires about the spiritual 
welfare of the family, and probably offers a 
fervent prayer with them before he departs. 
That family are pretty certain to be at church 
on the next Sunday. If a business man in his 
congregation has met with a reverse, he calls 
in at his counting-room, gives him a warm 
shake of the hand and a kind word of encour- 



THE SUCCESSFUL PASTOR. 239 

agement. The unfortunate merchant y*ee?s the 
warm pressure of that hand the next time he 
goes to church: he is ready to put into that 
hand the key to his own heart. 

If there is a sick child in the flock, the pas- 
tor is kneeling beside its little crib ; if there is 
a bit of crape hanging at the door-knob, the 
pastor is quite sure to be found amid the weep- 
ing family within. At every pastoral visit he 
makes he weaves a new strand into the cord of 
love that binds that household to him and to 
the sanctuary. Such a pastor bases the pulpit 
on the hearts of his people; and all the mis- 
chief-making Guy Fawkses in the parish can- 
not put enough powder-kegs of discontent 
under that pulpit to " blow out " the incum- 
bent. 

It may be said that all this pastoral visita- 
tion consumes a vast amount of time. So it 
does ; but it can generally be made in the after- 
noon, while the morning is devoted to study. 
And the minister is studying liunian nature at 
every visit : is not this next in importance to a 
knowledge of God's Word ? It is idle for any 



240 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

pastor to plead that his flock is too large for 
him to visit them. The writer of this para- 
graph has over three hundred pews in his 
church, — every one of them rented, to the last 
sitting, — and he finds no difficulty in reaching 
every family, at least once in each year. The 
very exercise of walking from house to house 
is a life-preserver. Every visit gives an observ- 
ant pastor some information that he wants, and 
some new materials for a sermon. It would be 
a great mercy to many a minister, — and to his 
people, — if he could be dragged out of his 
books, and be brought into personal contact 
with every-day life. 

There is about one minister in every genera- 
tion who is so situated that he cannot possibly 
be a visitant of his flock. Charles H. Spurgeon 
is such an one. With a congregation of five 
thousand souls, and a membership of over 
three thousand, with the charge of a theolog- 
ical school, the editorship of a religious maga- 
zine, and the oversight of a dozen mission 
stations, he cannot be expected to visit six or 
seven hundred families. Spurgeon is the bun- 



THE SUCCESSFUL PASTOR. 241 

dred-handed Briareus of the modern pulpit ; 
but the visitation of his immense flock he nec- 
essarily leaves to his board of elders. When 
he does encounter his parishioners, he is said 
to be very cordial and aff'able. 

Many arguments might be urged in favor of 
regular and systematic pastoral visitation on 
the part of every Christian minister. For 
what is the real object and end of a minister's 
office 1 Is it simply to preach sermons 1 No I 
It is to Christianize and save immortal souls. 
It is to edify Christ's Church, to purify society, 
to fight sin, to lead souls to Jesus. Preaching 
sermons is one of the means to this end. It 
is, indeed, a chief and indispensable agency. 
But if a pastor can prepare more practical 
sermons, and can lodge those sermons more 
effectually in the hearts of his auditors, by 
constant pastoral intercourse with them, then 
is he morally bound to keep up that inter- 
course. The mass of sinful men are only to 
be reached through their affections. Sympathy 
is power. Christ Jesus did not win Zaccheus 

the publican, by argument. He simply went 
11 



242 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

to his house, and won him by a divine sym- 
pathy. Methinks, as I close this article, I hear 
some good, plain, humble " fisher of souls " 

whisper to me, '' Brother C , I thank you 

for your words of cheer. My Master never 
trusted me with ten talents ; but he gave me 
one talent in my heart, I cannot be a Spur- 
geon ; but I can go out and love somebody into 
the sphere of the gospel. With God's help, 
I may become a successful pastor." 



THE PLAINT OF A MINISTER'S 
DOOE-BELL. 



T AM that much-used and long-suffering 
•^ article, a minister's door-bell. As I have 
a very distinct voice, and often address the 
people within doors, let me say a gentle word 
or two to the multitudes of " outsiders." I 
have a few hints to give, and a word to the 
wise ought to be sufficient. (The trouble is 
that the wise are not as numerous as the other- 
wise.) 

My first hint is. Don't call on my master in 
the morning, unless it be on a matter of the 
most vital importance, or in regard to some- 
body's spiritual welfare. The morning is a 
student's golden hour. My master is a student 
of God's Word, and whoever robs him of his 
morning robs his congregation of the bread 
and the water of life. If you must come dur- 



244 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

ing his precious season of brain-work, pray he 
short; and, when you are done, then (as Dr. 
Cox once phrased it) " make rectilineals " for 
the door ! But how do you know but your 
five minutes' interruption has frightened away 
a whole flock of admirable thoughts which 
were just about alighting on his page ? You 
may have well-nigh spoiled a day's work. 

Just let me tell you into what scrapes I got 
the good man yesterday. It was Tuesday, 
which is always a minister's best day for 
study. He rests on Monday, and then lays 
the keel of his sermon on Tuesday morning ; 
for he don't believe in burning out his brains 
and heart over a lamp on Saturday night. 
(None but fools or sluggards make sermons 
on Saturday nights.) Well, yesterday morn- 
ing I had the St. Vitus' dance. First came a 
book-agent. He said he must see the min- 
ister, because he " had a work to sell that no 
minister's library should be without." He 
pushed his way in, and pestered my master 
for half an hour, until the poor man bought 
the book, for the same reason that the girl 



THE PLAINT OF A MINISTER'S DOOR-BELL. 245 

married her importunate suitor, — "just to get 
rid of him." After him came a big burly- 
brother from Nebraska, who said he was 
" hound to raise the money to pay off their 
church debt, and two hundred dollars more to 
top off their preacher's salary." I wanted to 
hint to him that he had better call on the 
secretary of the Church Erection Board about 
the one, and on the treasurer of the Board of 
Home Missicns about the other. In he went; 
and as the door opened, I heard him shout 
out in genuine Western style : " Well, Doctor, 
bow are ye X I am hound to call on all the 
ministers in town, and I thought I'd begin 
with you." The Nebraska brother sat in 
" executive session " with my long-suffering 
lord, and then came out with the fi^nk apol- 
ogy, " I am sorry to take so much of your 
time." So \^ as the minister. 

Now that honest stranger had a perfect 
right to raise the money for his prairie 
church ; but he ought to have gone right to 
the officer of the church societies, whose husi- 
ness it is to hear and to answer such appli- 



246 , THOUGHT-HIVES. 

cations. Every well-regulated city church 
takes up a large collection for the treasury 
of its church erection and home missionary 
boards ; and to that treasury the applicant 
should go, and not badger the over-worked 
pastor to make out a list of his parishioners 
to be called on for extra donations. 

After the exodus of the genial " son of the 
soil," there came up a slender, sharp-visaged 
lady, with a pair of gold " specks " over her 
hungry eyes, and a "ridicule" on her arm. 
She gave me a tweak, and then she bolted in. 
It is hard work to refuse a woman; and has 
been so ever since Adam said yes to Eve when 
he ought to have said no. So the minister 
blandly said, " What can I do for you, madam 1 " 
She told- him that, like her Master, she was 
going about doing good. She was the first 
directress of the " Hospital for Total Incura- 
bles." After giving several touching cases of 
hopeless eiforts for helpless victims, she finally 
asked him if he could not prepare and deliver 
a gratuitous lecture for the benefit of the said 
hospital! She said that she had tried Mr. 



THE PLAINT OF A MINISTER'S DOOR-BELL. 247 

Beecher, and Mr. Gough, and Mr. Chapin, and 

Dr. A , and Mr. B ; and now she 

would try him. The poor man was tried with 
a vengeance. He rose presently and said: 
" Madam, I am holding meetings every night. 
I never lecture. Please accept these five dol- 
lars for your institution. Good-morning ! " 
As he bowed her out, I saw that his face was 
fiushed ; but just then a man came up with a 
bundle of papers, and said that he " only 
wanted the Doctor to look over these testi- 
monials, and to give him a letter of recom- 
mendation to the collector of the port ! " This 
was the drop too much. It was now twelve 
o'clock, and not a line on the sermon. My 
master (I am afraid) did not order his speech 
very delicately w^hen he said : " Good friend, 
this is not the Custom house ! " and closed the 
door. The morning was gone. And with it 
the sermon. Next Sunday I'll warrant you 
that somebody will come out of church and 
mutter, " Well, the Doctor wasn't quite up to 
the mark this morning." 

Now pray don't think my master is a churl. 



248 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

y 

He is a kind, forbearing, hard-toiling servant of 
Christ. He only asks that, while he is doing 
his peoples work, and preparing their dis- 
course, he may not be plundered of his precious 
time. His congregation have their rights also ; 
and he will not consent to cheat them out of 
their gospel food. While he is absorbed in 
his studies, pray do not intrude with irrelevant 
matters ; and, if you do come, he short. Give* 
him his morning hours. He is seeking God's 
truth to save immortal souls. Is not that of 
more importance than listening to the tedious 
talk of importunate intruders ? 

But there is one class of visitors whom my 
master always welcomes, even in his busiest 
moments of study. He loves to see every 
man, woman, or child, rich or poor, who comes 
to him for spiritual counsel, for prayer, for 
help, or to help him do his Saviour's work. 

The other day, when the Widow B came 

to tell him of her son's conversion, he followed 
her to the door ; and, with tears in his eyes, 

he said : " God bless you. Mother B 1 

You have helped me make my sermon this 



THE PLAINT OF A MINISTERS DOOR-BELL. 249 

morning." I have seen him close his books to 
go off with a poor child to the " Home for the 
Friendless." He is always ready to talk with 
people about their souls, or to do any thing 
which belongs to him as a workman conse- 
crated to his Master's work. For the sick, 
the sinning, the dying, the bereaved, he has an 
open ear and an open heart. But he is too 
busy to be bored with what does not belong 
to him. 

Eemember that the owner of this house has 
not long to live. He has no time for trifles. 
The door is always open to the sad, the sor- 
rowing, the seekers after Jesus. We minis- 
ters' door-bells are often pulled by trembling 
hands. But to the new-come youth, who is a 
stranger in this great city, to the needy, to the 
applicant for religious instruction, to the seeker 
for spiritual aid, this little door-bell always 
whispers, " Come and welcome ! " 



11* 



STRENGTHENING A PASTOE'S 
HANDS. 



" And Jonathan, Saul's son, arose and went to David in the 
wood, and strengthened his hands in God." — 1 Sam. xxiii. 16. 

A BEAUTIFUL friendship was that which 
•^ ^ warmed the heart of the tyrant's son 
towards David the hunted fugitive ; it was a 
" love passing the love of woman." Jonathan 
went on no sentimental errand of romantic 
affection, but from a lofty sense of duty, to 
strengthen the faith and to cheer the spirit of 
the noblest servant of God then living. David 
had a mighty work to do for Jehovah. When 
the faithful Jonathan went out to strengthen 
his hands in God, it was that those hands 
might yet hold Israel's sceptre, and might pen 
the matchless psalms, and might protect the 
ark of the Lord. We can imagine these godly 



STRENGTHENING A PASTOR's HANDS. 251 

brothers kneeling down together amid the 
thickets of Ziph, and pouring out their hearts 
to Him who was their " refuge and stronghold 
in the time of trouble." 

That was probably the last time that these 
twin-spirits ever met on earth. The black 
surge of civil war soon rolled between them ; 
and in a few weeks the mangled form of Jon- 
athan was picked up on the bloody field of 
Gilboa. It must have been a sadly precious 
thought to David, that the last time he ever 
saw his friend was when he came, at the risk 
of life, to strengthen Ms hands in God. 

Now, every true pastor is " anointed of the 
Lord," as David was, to do a holy work. 
When his hands hang down through discour- 
agement, or when he is in a " thick- wood " of 
troubles, and his work lags or fails utterly for 
want of helpers, then is the time when he 
needs the Jonathans. Paul found his in that 
noble committee who came down from E,ome 
to Apii Forum, and gave him such a recep 
tion that he " thanked God, and took cour- 
age." How many a minister is to-day crippled 



252 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

in his work and well-nigh crushed in spirit, 
just for the want of hearty, sympathetic, godly 
supporters. He can afford to Avear a thread- 
bare coat, and to go hungry for books, better 
than he can to " spend his strength for naught." 
He can stand an empty purse better than an 
empty prayer-meeting. 

How shall I strengthen the hands of my 
pastor 1 cries some reader whose conscience is 
suddenly smitten within him. You can do 
it in many ways. Go, and give him your 
hand and heart. Talk over the affairs of 
your church (yours as much as his) ; help him 
to lay plans of usefulness, and then help him 
to push them forward. It is just as much 
your duty to w^ork for the Master as it is your 
minister's duty. 

Perhaps your pastor has been often dis- 
heartened by the emptiness of your pew on 
the Sabbath. He prepared carefully more 
than one sermon especially for you ; but you 
were not there to hear it ; so both suffered 
from your absence. For one, I confess that I 
never yet preached a sermon loud enough to 



STRENGTHENING A PASTOR's HANDS. 253 

awaken a parishioner who was dozing away 
the day at home, or sauntering off to other 
churches. If a good reason keep you from 
your pew, send a substitute ; invite some 
church - neglecting friend to go and occupy 
your place. Perhaps the sermon may save 
his soul. 

When a discourse is adapted to the spiritual 
condition of your husband, your wife, your 
son, or other one dear to yon, follow it up with 
prayer and with personal efforts for that friend's 
salvation. While your pastor is endeavoring 
to draw your unconverted friend to Christ, pray 
don't pull the other way. The backward pull 
of your unkind criticisms, or your inconsist- 
ent conduct, will avail more than the forward 
drawing of his sermon. If one of your family 
comes home from the sanctuary tender and 
thoughtful, try to deepen then* impressions. 
Your pastor is drawing : draw with him. 
Strengthen his hands in God. We could 
name certain Sunday-school teachers who al- 
ways bring the awakened inquirers in their 
classes immediately to their pastor for conversa- 



254 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

tion : in those classes conversions are frequent, 
because they are looked for, and labored for 
too. Oh for more such Jonathans ! 

It is a happy thing to have even one worker 
in our churches. But it is far better to have 
an hundred. Aaron and Hur answered very 
well to stay up Moses' hands for a few brief 
hours ; but what if our " Aaron " is sick, and 
our " Hur " is out of town ] Who then shall 
stay up the arms that hang down for want of 
help 1 We don't call that a thrifty apple-tree 
which bears all its fruit on one limb : neither 
is that a thrifty church in which half-a-dozen 
persons do all the praying and all the work- 
ing. Let every hand, even the youngest or 
the feeblest, be stretched forth to help the 
ambassador of Christ, and a revival is already 
begun. 

Finally, the power your minister most needs 
is the power from on high. This comes 
through prayer. Peter's eloquent sermon on 
the day of Pentecost was pioneered by the 
rousing prayer-meeting in the " upper-cham- 
ber," and three thousand souls were converted 



STRENGTHENING A PASTOR's HANDS. 255 

before sunset. What the steam-cylinder is to 
the engine, that is the prayer-meeting to the 
Church. There let the life, the heat, the 
power be engendered. And when the place 
of prayer is thronged by fervid importunate 
souls, then how gloriously are the pastors 
hands strengthened in God! 



TWENTY-FIVE YEAES IN THE 
PULPIT* 



T^HERE are stages and halting-places in a 
-*- man's journey of life, — such as Bun- 
yan's Pilgrim reached at the Wicket Gate and 
the House Beautiful and the Delectable Moun- 
tains. One such point of retrospection a min- 
ister reaches when he has finished a quarter 
of a century in the pulpit. He feels like sit- 
ting down for a moment, and gazing backward 
over the long highway, and like entering a 
few serious thoughts in the diary of his exist- 
ence. The writer of this paragraph has come 
to the " silver wedding " of his ministry. 

Eleven years have passed since we spent our 
first Sabbath with the Lafayette-avenue Church. 
It then numbered one hundred and forty mem- 
bers. To-day it has on its roll fourteen hun- 

* Written in April, 1871. 



TWENTY-FIVE YEARS TN THE PULPIT. 257 

dred and three. The number of admissions by 
profession of faith has been smaller than in 
previous years. They number but forty-two. 
In the most successful year (1866) there were 
three hundred and thirty additions ; nearly all 
on confession of faith in a new-found Saviour. 

Twenty-five years ago to-day we preached 
our " maiden " discourse, before a congrega- 
tion of solid and somewhat somnolent farmers, 
in the little hamlet of Clover Hill, New Jersey. 
It was our first attempt with a manuscript; 
and, whether from excessive fatigues during the 
previous week or under the sermon, several 
of the audience — like the first farmer in 
Eden — fell ''into a deep sleep." We then 
learned that every written sermon needs the 
frequent spur of a spirited extempore passage. 

Before that first year closed we were domes- 
ticated in our work in a small congregation in 
quiet Burlington, at that time the residence 
of the pious, kingly-hearted Dr. Cortland Van 
Eensselaer, and of Bishop Doane, who was 
famous for his High Churchism, and his 
" shovel-hat." In that little parish of Burling- 



258 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

ton we tasted the joys of our first revival. It 
was like an encamping at Elim under the 
threescore and ten palm-trees, and beside the 
twelve wells of water. A call from Trenton, 
the capital of the State, to gather a new 
congregation, took us thither in the autumn 
of 1849. A new edifice was reared, and from 
it a colony has since " swarmed out " to form 
still another congregation. It is a matter of 
profound joy to us to have been permitted to 
oversee the erection of three church edifices 
for the worship of Jehovah. God grant that 
the walls of those structures may glitter in the 
light of the millennial morning ! 

After our ministry in Trenton came a detour 
of seven years through the quiet domains of 
our Dutch E-eformed neighbors in New York. 
Happy years those were, too, in old Market 
Street, with gracious showers in the golden 
year of 1858. We left our Dutch kinsfolk 
with pleasant memories, and without ever 
having learned to smoke a pipe, or being con- 
taminated v^ith any dangerous degree of con- 
servatism. In 1860 w^e crossed the ferry to 



TWENTY-FIVE YEARS IN THE PULPIT. 259 

Brooklyn ; and during the next year the foun- 
dations of Lafayette-avenue Church edifice 
were laid, amid the roar of Fort Sumter's 
guns. The flag that celebrated the triumph 
of freedom floated afterwards from its towers. 
The building then stood almost on the edge of 
Brooklyn : it is now about at the centre. 

These five and twenty years have been spent 
in unbroken labor, each day rounded with 
sound honest sleep. We count it a subject for 
devout thankfulness that we have never been 
kept from the pulpit by sickness, except on 
one single Sabbath ! If any ministerial 
brother who believes in using a little ale or 
port wine " for his stomach's sake " has done 
better than that, we should be happy to form 
his acquaintance. Sleep is worth more than 
all the stimulants in the universe. During 
this quarter of a century we have preached 
about four thousand times, and made about as 
many public addresses. We have been per- 
mitted to receive 2,527 persons into church- 
fellowship, of whom twelve hundred united 
on profession of faith. 



260 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

But if we were called on to decide between 
the spiritual results of labors with the tongue 
and labors with the pen, we might give the 
preference to the latter. During our whole 
ministry we have made it a rule never to let 
a week pass without at least one article of a 
moral or religious character — long or short 
— being sent to the press. These articles 
number about thirteen hundred. Their circu- 
lation in Great Britain and Canada has been 
almost as general as in the United States. 
We have made a proximate calculation of the 
number of copies printed during these twenty- 
five years, and find that they amount to over 
fifty-five millions ! If each copy had but a 
single reader, here were fifty-five millions of 
opportunities to reach immortal souls ! We 
hope that our readers will pardon this per- 
sonal allusion: we throw out the fact as a 
stimulus to our ministerial brethren to make a 
more liberal use of the pen, and the weekly 
religious press. All that we have accom- 
plished has been small in comparison with 
the widely circulated writings of Newman 



TWENTY-FIVE YEARS IN THE PULPIT. 261 

Hall, Spurgeon, and the pastor of Plymouth 

Church. 

Looking back to-day to the starting-point of 
our ministerial life, we are amazed at the 
changes which this quarter of a century has 
witnessed. When we began our work the 
Mexican war was just opening ; and California 
had not yet yielded up her golden secret to 
mankind. The magnetic telegraph was in its 
infancy. But one line of ocean steamers 
existed on the globe ! The statesmanship of 
America was then chiefly occupied in con- 
structing new guarantees for the peace and 
perpetuity of the '^peculiar institution." 
Thank God ! we saw the last bubble rise to 
the surface to mark where Pharaoh perished 
with his chariots and horsemen ! 

Clay, Webster, and Calhoun then led the 
American forum. Lyman Beecher, Archibald 
Alexander, Albert Barnes, and Dr. Thornwell 
were the representative men of our Calvinistic 
pulpit. That resplendent "star" which now 
hangs over Brooklyn heights was just rising 
above the horizon, from an obscure parish in 



262 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

Indiana. Chalmers was then the foremost pul- 
pit orator on the globe. Spurgeon was but a 
schoolboy in his eleventh year. Skinner, Cox, 
Kirk, Bascom, Wayland, and Addison Alexan- 
der were in their splendid meridian. 

At that day the fresh rupture between the 
"Old" and "New School" Presbyterianism 
was ghastly and. gaping, — a great ugly wound 
that threatened to ulcerate. Little did we then 
dream of occupying a seat in the first reunited 
General Assembly. 

So has the past quarter of a century flown 
by, — " like a tale that is told." At the risk 
of being charged with egotism we have nar- 
rated the meagre story of our small part in 
its sayings and doings. It has gone with its 
account into the record-book of the day of 
Judgment. When the next quarter of a cen- 
tury ends, the hand which pens these lines 
will probably be motionless. Another voice 
will be heard in yonder pulpit. God grant 
that both pen and voice may never declare or 
publish " any thing save Jesus Christ, and him 
crucified ! " 



THE WORKING TEMPERANCE 
CHURCH. 



TTVERY true and timely moral reform 
-*-^ should be born and nursed, and reared 
and supported by the Church of Jesus Christ. 
There is not a single moral precept which sin- 
ful humanity needs, but the Church should 
teach it; there is not a wholesome example 
to be set, but the Church should practise it. 
That Christian church will be the most Christ- 
UJce which does the most to " seek and to save 
the lost." 

Among all the great moral reforms, none 
has a stronger claim on Christian men and 
Christian ministers than the enterprise for 
saving society from the crime and curse of 
drunkenness. And intemperance never will 
be checked, the liquor traffic never will be 
prohibited, the drinking usages of social life 



264 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

will never be overthrown until the members of 
Christ's Church all feel that they are also 
members of Christ's great Temperance Society. 
If the Church does not save the world, then 
the world will sink the Church. And what a 
burlesque it is to style that church organi- 
zation a " salt of the earth " which has a trim- 
mer in its pulpit and tipplers in its pews ! 

Holding these incontrovertible opinions, we 
earnestly insist that every Christian church 
which expects to do its whole work must have 
a Temperance department as much as a Sun- 
day school or a missionary department. It 
must have a machinery to promote total absti- 
nence, just as much as a machinery to pro- 
mote Bible distribution or Mission-schools, or 
Sabbath observance. A well-appointed steamer 
must have not only a good engine in its hull 
and a good pilot at the wheel, but a good 
supply of life-preservers in the cabins. 

What are some of the essential features of 
a working Temperance Church ? 

I. We reply that the first essential is a 
thorough teetotaller in its pulpit. An active 



THE WORKING TEMPERANCE CHURCH. 265 

Temperance Church with a wine-bibbing min- 
ister is as rare a curiosity as a victorious army 
with a drunken commander. A zealous tee- 
totaller will not only practise abstinence from 
intoxicating drinks, but he will preach it as a 
vital part of his gospel-message on the Lord's 
day. The Bible abounds in Temperance texts ; 
and every community abounds in people who 
need to hear them. It is the pastor's office to 
expound the causes and the curse of drunken- 
ness. It is his office to create a Temperance 
conscience among his congregation. It is his 
duty to take the lead in arranging and con- 
ducting Temperance meetings in his neigh- 
borhood. 

Not only may a zealous Temperance pastor 
look for revivals in his flock, but also for a 
more extended influence among the surround- 
ing world. 

A fearless preacher against popular sins 
commands, in the long-run, the popular ear 
and the popular heart. Let the career of a 
Beecher in Brooklyn, a Tyng in New York, 
a Barnes in Philadelphia, a Kirk in Boston, 

12 



266 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

and a Hatfield in Chicago testify to this fact. 
The minister who brings God's Word to bear 
against the great sins of the time must be 
heard and will be felt. He may repel a few 
trimmers and time-servers ; he may awaken 
some bad passions in the self-indulgent and 
the lovers of their lusts ; but he attracts to 
him the warm-hearted, the philanthropic, the 
spiritually - minded. Drunkards' wives will 
persuade their husbands to come and hear 
him. Mothers will rejoice to place their 
sons under his faithful ministry. The benevo- 
lent will co-operate with such an earnest ad- 
vocate of Christian reform. The masses love 
and honor a hold defender of the right It is 
not the man who drifts with the current of 
evil, but he who, like the sure-anchored rock, 
stems the current, that is sure to arrest the 
popular attention and command the popular 
heart. 

II. Every efficient church should have a 
well-organized total abstinence society. The 
title to membership should be the simple 
signing of the abstinence pledge. We 



THE WORKING TEMPERANCE CHURCH. 267 

would recommend, also, that an annual pay- 
ment of a half-dollar should be made by 
each member, in order to provide some per- 
manent income for the society. Collections 
should also be taken up at public meetings ; 
but tickets of admission should seldom be used, 
because they tend to exclude the very persons 
who most need the benefit of the lecture. The 
public meetings of church societies should be 
held in the church edifice, and as often as 
'proper advocates of the cause can be secured 
to address them. Better no meetings at all 
than to have the audiences trifled with by a 
catch-penny bufi'oon or ranting adventurer. 
The number of acceptable speakers might be 
vastly increased if Christian laymen, as well 
as ministers, would fit themselves for this 
noble and needed wprk by studying Temper- 
ance books and publications. It is easier to 
make a good Temperance address than a good 
political speech ; but political speakers are 
plenty as blackberries. 

The best possible music should be provided 
for all public meetings, arid the Pledge should 



268 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

always be circulated at the close. It is the 
province of the society to subscribe for and 
circulate Temperance papers through the con- 
gregation. Several times in each year the 
tracts of the National Temperance Society 
might be distributed in the pews. 

Such an organization does not require much 
" constitution and by-laws/' or many officers. 
A wide-awake president, vice-president, secre- 
tary, and treasurer, and a live board of half 
dozen " managers," are amply sufficient. 
Choose your president for his working qual- 
ities, and not for his '• name." All meetings 
should be opened with prayer or the reading 
of God's Word 

In Surrey Chapel, London, the celebrated 
Newman Hall has a Temperance society which 
has enrolled 8,000 members in fifteen years ; 
150 reformed inebriates have been received 
into membership with the church in which 
Brother Hall is so bold and faithful a spiritual 
leader. There is also a Band of Hope, which 
enrolls a great number of children. 

III. This leads us to say that a working 



THE WORKING TEMPERANCE CHURCH. 269 

Temperance Church will lay out no small 
part of its efforts on the youth of the Sunday 
school. Here is the point to apply preven- 
tion. As the Sunday school deals with the 
beginning of life, it should logically deal with 
the beginnings of sin. If all our children 
could be kept from touching the first glass, 
intemperance would disappear. 

In efficient Sunday-school operations, the 
following are absolutely indispensable : — 

Good Temperance books in the library. 

A circulation of the Youth's Temperance 
Banner^ or some similar paper, among the 
scholars. 

The Total Abstinence Pledge discreetly 
administered by the teachers. 

Frequent and simple addresses to the school 
on the dangers of tampering with drink, and 
on the sin and sorrows of the drunkard. 

No teacher's breath should ever be flavored 
by the odors of the wine-glass or the beer- 
cup. 

Total Abstinence should be taught as a 



270 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

Christian virtue. " Woe unto him who 
causeth one of these little ones to stumble." 

IV. Our final recommendation is, that every 
church-member should make Temperance a 
part of his daily religion. The bottle is the 
deadliest foe to Christ in our churches and our 
communities. A friend of Christ must be the 
enemy of the bottle. More souls are ruined 
by the intoxicating cup than by any single 
vice or error on the globe. Every professed 
Christian who gives his example to the drink- 
ing usages is a partner in the tremendous 
havoc which those evil customs produce. 

" If any man will come after Me," said the 
Divine Master, " let him deny himself J' And 
the great Apostle only clenched this glori- 
ous precept when he said, " It is good not to 
drink wine whereby my brother stumbleth, or 
is offended, or is made weak." On this immu- 
table rock of self-denial stands the Temper- 
ance reform ! There the Divine Founder of 
Christianity placed it ; with Christianity it is 
linked ; with Christianity it will stand or 



THE WORKING TEMPERANCE CHURCH. 271 

perish. We do not hesitate to close this 
brief paper with the declaration that with the 
triumph and prevalence of Christian self- 
denial m the Church is bound up the only 
hope of the triumph and prevalence of pure 
Christianity in our world. 



DIGGING FOR WATEE. 



OOME of the " out - of- the - way " passages 
*^ in God's Word contain precious teach- 
ings, which will repay us for hunting them 
out and turning them up. There is a rich 
ore of truth hidden under them. For exam- 
ple, there is an historical incident narrated 
in the third chapter of the Second Book of 
Kings which is very seldom noticed. We 
read that the kings of Judah and of Israel 
were at war with the heathen armies of 
Moab. The armies of the Lord were suffer- 
ing from the want of water. Within the 
compass of a seven days' journey they can- 
not find a drop. In their straits they send 
for God's prophet, Elisha. He becomes God's 
oracle, and gives them this message from 
Heaven: "Thus saith the Lord, make the 



DIGGING FOR WATER. 273 

land full of ditches^ The word may be 
better translated trenches. How shall they 
be filled ? That is not their concern. It is 
the duty of faith not to question, but to obey. 
" For thus saith the Lord, ye shall not see 
■wind, neither shall ye see rain ; yet this valley 
shall be filled with water ^ that ye may drink ; 
both ye, and your cattle, and your beasts." 
The trenches were dug, and presently the 
waters began to steal into them from some 
mysterious, invisible source. It was not an 
ordinary process of Nature ; but a super- 
natural process, accomplished by the direct 
agency of God. All the awakening, con- 
verting, and quickening power that operates 
on human souls is really supernatural. Up 
to a certain point human agency acts, but 
not one hair's breadth further. '' Paul may 
plant," and there he stops ; " iVpollos may 
water," and there he must stop. Then comes 
in the divine agency, when " God giveth the 
increase." All that the thirsting Israelites 
could do, or were asked to do, was simply to 
dig the trenches. And then a supernatural 

12* 



274 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

power filled them mysteriously with water. 
There does not appear to have been any 
Huxley, or Tyndall, or Darwin in the camp, 
to teach God's people that supernatural 
agencies are never exerted, even for a good 
object. The simple-hearted Israelites w^anted 
water, and they dug channels for God to pour 
it in. They prepared for a blessing, and the 
blessing came. 

This is the pithy and practical truth that we 
find by lifting up this text and looking under 
it. It is a suggestive one to hundreds of our 
churches, which have long been languishing 
in spiritual drought. If we want spiritual 
blessings, we must dig the trenches to receive 
them. 

The first trench that ought to be opened in 
some churches is a deep, broad channel of 
mutual confidence and brotherly love. When 
Christians grow cold and neglectful of their 
own duties, they grow censorious tow^ard each 
other. As love declines, the critical temper 
increases. All along the eaves of a cold 
church hang the sharp, piercing icicles of 



DIGGING FOR WATER. 275 

criticism and censoriousness. Then every- 
body suffers. The pastor catches his share : 
his most honest efforts are the most censured. 
The officers of the church are blamed roundly, 
and those who happen to be unpopular are 
made the luckless scapegoats on which to load 
the failures of the church. Each blames the 
others ; but no one goes down in the dust of 
contrition and blames himself. Sometimes this 
censoriousness is born of the very impatience 
at the want of success. Sometimes good men 
and women, vexed that things do not go better, 
fall to hitting right and left their fellow-mem- 
bers, their officers, the pastor getting a black- 
ened eye among the rest. It is as if a rifleman 
on the battle-field, seeing the fight go badly, 
quits firing, and takes to battering his com- 
rades with the butt of his rifle. Whereas his 
own example^ in just standing firm and taking 
sure aim at the foe, would do more to restore 
the battle than all his disorderly assaults on 
his fellow-soldiers. The charity that " think- 
eth no evil," and is " not easily provoked," and 
that " seeketh not her own " (way), is the first 



276 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

grace to be exercised in mauy a cold, dis- 
cordant, fault-finding church. How can 
Christians expect the outside world to put 
confidence in them when they put so little 
confidence in each other ? The first duty in 
such a church is to run a deep, broad trench 
of cordial charity and brotherly love right 
through the whole congregation. This trench 
must be dug by every one before his own dod7\ 
Another trench to be opened speedily is 
earnest, penitential prayer. This is God's 
appointed " channel to convey the blessings 
he designs to give." I sometimes think that 
there are no equal number of utterances by 
reputable people in which so many false- 
hoods are told as in public prayers. Loving 
words are often spoken by people whose 
hearts rankle with mean spites and mali- 
cious grudges. Sins are glibly confessed in 
prayer which if anybody else should charge 
upon the speaker he would grow red in the 
face with wrath. Words of solemn self-con- 
secration are fluently uttered by persons who 
are living to themselves, and not to Jesus 



DIGGING FOR WATER. 277 

Christ. Such prayers are a mockery. They 
cut no channels for God's blessings. But 
genuine prayer — born of contrition and soul- 
thirst, poured out with faith and wrestling im- 
portunity — breaks its way up to the Throne 
of Infinite Love. Such prayer always brings 
a revival ; nay, it is itself a revival. 

A third work of preparation for the divine 
blessing is equally indispensable. It is per- 
sonal repentance of sin. Not of other people's 
sins, but of our own. The best draining of 
a farmer's field is sub-soil drainage. In our 
churches we need a sub-soil repentance. It 
must cut deep. It must cut up sin by the 
root. If the ploughshare run through the 
flower-beds and melon-patches of our self- 
indulgence, so much the better. The trench 
that drains off our sins will be a channel for 
the sweet, life-giving waters of salvation. 

We might mention other trenches that are 
needed, — such as hard work and liberality 
in giving for Christ. The wider we cut these 
channels, the broader and the fuller will be 
the stream of God's blessings. Thus saitli 



278 



THOUGHT-HIVES. 



the Lord to his people, " Make your valley 
full of trenches y We may " see no wind 
nor rain." We may hear no sounds of violent 
excitement. But silently and steadily the tides 
of spiritual influence will flow into our souls. 
As the tides rise from the ocean over bare 
and slimy ground, and lift up the keels of 
grounded vessels, so shall these blessings of 
the Holy Spirit flow into our churches. Not 
by might, not by human power, but '* by my 
Spirit, saith the Lord." 

Brethren, this plain-spoken article may 
reach scores of churches who are so dry that 
there is " no water within a compass of seven 
days' journey." God's command to you is to 
prepare for hlessings^ov they will never come. 
When your trenches are ready, the currents 
of spiritual power will flow in. If you want 
water, dig for it ! 



THE SHEPHERD'S SLING. 

A Plea for Foreign Missions. 



" Then said David to the Phihstine, Thou comest to me with a 
Bword, and with a spear, and with a shield : but I come to thee 
in the name of the Lord of hosts." — 1 Sam. xvii. 45. 

'TpHAT was a remarkable encounter which 
-^ once took place in the little valley of 
Elah. With its thrilling story you are all as 
familiar as you are with the grapple of Amer- 
ican yeomanry on Bunker Hill, or with the 
dear-bought victory of freedom on the heights 
of Gettysburg. From our early childhood 
we have all loved to read the brief epic of 
David and Goliath. With our childish eyes 
we distinctly saw the boastful champion of the 
Philistines plant himself in full view of Israel, 
and of Israel's heathen foes. 

The champion measures six cubits and a 
span ; and every inch of his giant stature is 
encased in flashing brass. The staff of his 



280 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

spear is like to a weaver's beam ; the head of 
his spear weighs six hundred shekels of iron. 
A shield-bearer goes before him. His impious 
proclamation is : "I defy the armies of Israel 
this day: give me a man, that we may tight 
together." 

For forty days the heathen's challenge re- 
mains unaccepted, and for forty days the heart 
of Israel is growing weaker than water. At 
length a shepherd's boy fresh from his flocks, 
with the ruddy tint of toil on his fair young 
face, steps modestly forth into the lists. In 
one hand he carries a staff ; in the other he 
carries a common sling. He has dropped five 
smooth stones into the shepherd's pouch by 
his side. These are his only weapons ; the 
protection of God is his only armor. Even 
so was ruddy-cheeked free labor, fresh from its 
fields, pitted against the giant of oppression 
in our late national conflict, 

I need not recount to you the bulletin of 
that battle at Elah, — so short, so sharp, and 
so decisive. I need not repeat to you modest 
David's reply to the disdainful champion : 



THE shepherd's SLING. 281 

'' Thou comest to me with a sword, and with a 
spear, and with a shield : but I come to thee 
in the name of the Lord of hosts, w^hom thou 
hast defied." I need not tell you how the 
stripling put his hand in his bag, and took 
thence a stone, and slung it, and smote the 
Philistine in his forehead, and he fell upon his 
face to the earth. I need not depict to you 
the triumphant youth standing on the giant's 
prostrate carcass, and hewing ofi" his swagger- 
ing head ; nor the subsequent rout of the 
heathen before Israel's reassured and victo- 
rious armies. 

I have brought to you this narrative as 
a starting-point and an illustration. It fur- 
nishes a happy parable of the '' irrepressible 
conflict " between God's right and the devil's 
wrong. Goliath typifies the giant of Error 
that for forty centuries has defied the living 
God. Euddy Dai id is the Missionary Church. 
The five smooth stones are Gospel truths. 
The stafi" they bear is the unbroken promise 
of God. Before the " countless cloud of wit- 
nesses " in heaven and on earth the conflict is 



282 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

joined ; and all that " assembly shall know- 
that the Lord saveth not with sword and 
spear ; for the battle is the Lord's" and he 
will yet give the enemy into our hands. 

If the stripling of Bethlehem seemed a 
most unequal match for the brazen-mailed 
giant of Gath, how much more dispropor- 
tionate is the Church's missionary band to 
the stupendous enemy which they confront ! 
Worldly wisdom smiles at what it styles their 
" w^eak-minded enthusiasm ; " and, while it 
coldly commends their object, it predicts an 
inevitable failure. But the little band stand 
to their post. Rationalism derides them. In- 
fidelity scoifs at them. The false prophet and 
the false priests of Baal threaten them. But 
yet the little band toils on. When one of 
their number sinks at his post, there is another 
ready to step forward and to take up the aban- 
doned implements of labor. The ranks swell 
every year ; and often a gentle woman steps 
forth, and with meek heroism takes up the 
burden of a toil that has sunk so many a 
strong man to his grave. Occasionally a 



THE shepherd's SLING. 283 

youthful missionary falls when he has just 
learned how to wield his sling. Occasionally 
a Lyman or a Lowrie is struck down by mur- 
derous violence. A Winslow, a Judson, and 
a Poor sink under the burden of the long day, 
and are laid to rest. A Father Goodell 
comes home to die. A nobler life no man 
can live, a sublimer death no man can die, 
than to live or die a missionary of the Cross ! 

" How beautiful it is for man to die 
Upon the walls of Zion ! To be called, 
Like a watch-worn and weary sentinel, 
To put his armor off, and rest in heaven. 
W^hat is the warrior's clarion — though its blast 
Ring with the conquest of a world — to this ? 

What are all 
The trumpetings of proud humanity 
To the short history of one who dies for souls. 
And makes his sepulchre beside the King of kings ? " 

(a.) Wherein lies the real power of the 
Missionary Church? (I use this term be- 
cause my Bible gives me no other idea of a 
true church than a missionary, aggressive, 
reformatory, soul-saving body of working 
believers.) Wherein lies her power? Mani- 
festly not in her numbers; for she embraces 



284 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

less than one-fourth of the human race. Mani- 
festly not in her earthly resources ; for Mam- 
mon has more wealth than the Church, and 
Antichrist possesses cunninger state-craft and 
mightier armies. Her power lies in her living 
unio?i with the living God. And in proportion 
to her closeness of union with Christ Jesus 
will she be sagacious in plan, steadfast of 
purpose, fertile in resources, zealous in labor, 
prevalent in prayer, and victorious in achieve- 
ment. Christ is in the Missionary Church. 
He is not in heathenism, or in Moslemism, or 
in Rome. When he gave the Church her 
commission, " Go, teach all nations," he sealed 
up with it the priceless promise, "Lo! / am 
with you to the end of the world." 

With one slender rod, Moses cleft the Red 
Sea asunder ; but God was in the rod. With 
a herdsman's sling, David brought down the 
Philistine ; but God strengthened the young 
shepherd's arm, and guided the fatal stone. 
Out from the doorway of a prayer-meeting 
in Jerusalem, a handful of plain people issued 
forth, to turn the heathen world " upside 



THE shepherd's SLING.' 285 

down," and to carry the cross from the Eu- 
phrates to the Tiber. But Christ went with 
them and in them from that " upper chamber." 
Christ flamed on Peter's tongue ; Christ rea- 
soned from Paul's cultured brain ; Christ spake 
from Apollos' lips ; Christ throbbed in the pul- 
sations of John's warm heart; Christ shone 
from Stephen's face, when it was like unto the 
face of an angel. Lo ! I am with you always^ 
blazed on the banners of every apostolic corps ; 
Lo ! I am with you always^ rang as her bugle 
call to every march to victory. The power of 
that missionary apostolic Church lay in her 
piety ; for her piety was the measure of her 
union with Jesus Christ. And in our day the 
Church's piety is the Church's power. Do 
not forget, my brethren, this truth of truths 
for a moment. The power of the missionary 
Church is her living, toiling, self-denying 
piety. For this there can be no substitute. 
The Church may increase her agencies as she 
will ; she may multiply her machinery a hun- 
dred-fold ; but it will be all for naught, unless 
Christ Jesus be the " living Spirit within the 



286 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

wheels." What the missionary Church now 
most needs is another Pentecost. And all 
ye who would see new vigor in the work of 
missions, who would see a new zeal, a new 
liberality, a new inspiration in the Church at 
home, must besiege God's mercy-seat for pow- 
erful, soul-quickening revivals. 

(&.) Look now with me, a moment, at 
another element of strength in the Missionary 
Church. Not only is the power of God prom- 
ised to her fidelity, but the wisdom of God is 
visible in the choice of her materials. In our 
modern times, God has put His gospel faith 
into the best races on the globe. David has 
better blood in his veins than Goliath. The 
races to which God has intrusted His staff and 
five smooth stones of gospel truth are the 
same races that drew up Magna Charta and 
the Declaration of Independence, — the races 
that have made iron types to talk and iron 
ships to swim, — that have strung the tele- 
graphic nerves through humanity's limbs, and 
have woven out of revealed law the highest 
forms yet reached of Christian civilization. 



287 

For the spread of His gospel, God has made 
Great Britain strong, and Holland industrious, 
and Germany learned, and has saved our 
American Republic as by fire. The welfare of 
Christianity has God bound up with the wel- 
fare of certain races and nations. If this be 
so, how vitally important it is that those 
nations who essay to Christianize other nations 
should themselves be Christianized to the very 
core ! 

When the diplomacy of Christian nations 
has been employed to outwit simple savages, 
and the commerce of Christian nations has 
been employed to cheat them ; when the 
same ship that carried out the Bible was also 
freighted with opium and firearms, and with 
handcufi's to bind on savage limbs, we need 
not wonder that the very name of Christianity 
became an opprobrium and a terror. Only a 
short time ago a vessel was cleared from an 
American port to the coast of Africa, which 
carried seven missionaries in her cabin, and 
several hundred barrels of New England rum 
in her cargo ! I very much fear that the con- 



288 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

tents of her cargo will prove an overmatch for 
the contents of her cabin. 

Of other nations I am not to speak. But, 
for my own beloved land, I rejoice to say that 
her Divine Deliverer seems to be preparing 
her for her predestined work abroad by no com- 
mon discipline. What our liberated land now 
needs is another baptism, the baptism of 
Pentecost. Wherefore, all ye who long to 
see America's influence go forth like the 
morning light over every land, I pray you 
that ye besiege the mercy-seat for powerful, 
purifying Pentecostal revivals. 

(c.) Before I close, let me remind you of 
another pertinent parallel between the shep- 
herd-boy of Israel and Christ's Missionary 
Church. The young David of Bethlehem 
brought from his sheep-cote to the battle- 
field of Elah a hearty frame, a rustic sim- 
plicity, and an intrepid heart. Like the 
strong-limbed rail-hewer of our day, he was 
a plain-born son of toil, with the smell of 
mother earth on his garments. His cheek 
was ruddy with temperance ; his sinews were 



THE shepherd's SLING. 289 

knit with athletic exercise. That rustic son 
of Jesse, fresh from the hills, is a beautiful 
type of Christ's Church in its best days, — 
its days of self-denial^ — its apostolic days, 
when fishermen and tent-makers conquered 
principalities and powers, — its Reformation 
days, when the miner's son from Saxony, and 
the lean student of Geneva, smote the Papal 
Goliath, — its Puritan days, when Cromwell's 
" Ironsides " sent curl-pated cavaliers " whirl- 
ing " over Marston Moor ; when a band of 
Yorkshire farmers and herdsmen steered the 
" Mayflower " through wintry tempests to 
bleak Plymouth Rock ! And in our days the 
missionaries of the cross have mostly come 
from such households as the household of 
Jesse. Herein lies a lesson and a warning. 

Brethren ! I have a prodigious fear for 
our metropolitan churches. I fear that fast- 
growing wealth is impoverishing the Church's 
piety ; I fear that an unparalleled prosperity 
is making our churches luxurious, fash- 
ionable, worldly-minded, self-indulgent. The 
religion that walks on life's sunny side 

13 



290 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

in Paris laces, and sips its choice wines 
in freestone mansions, is not the religion 
that breeds missionaries, or fights Goliaths. 

Don't you remember reading in your child- 
hood's favorite fiction about Sinbad's voyage 
into the Indian Ocean? Do you remember 
that magnetic rock that rose from the surface 
of the placid sea ] Silently the vessel was 
attracted toward it; silently the bolts were 
drawn out of the ship's sides, one by one, 
through the subtle attraction of that magnetic 
rock. And w^hen the fated vessel drew so 
near that every bolt and clamp were unloosed, 
the whole structure of bulwark, mast, and 
spars, tumbled into ruin on the sea, and the 
sleeping sailors awoke to their drowning 
agonies ! 

So stands the magnetic rock of worldliness 
athwart the Church's path. If the Church 
draw too near, then bolt after bolt of godly 
purpose will be drawn out, clamp after clamp 
of Christian obligation will be unloosed, until 
the sacred argosy, that is freighted with im- 
mortal hopes, shall tumble into a shattered 



THE shepherd's SLING. 291 

and disgraceful wreck. Depend upon it, 
brethren, that God will never suffer this to 
be. He will not let us rob Him. Depend 
upon it, that if we lie down to luxurious 
slumber on couches of rosewood, while the 
world is perishing. He will snatch the couch 
from beneath us in financial judgments. If 
we persist in paving the way to our places 
of amusement and our parties of pleasure 
with His silver and gold, He will wrest it 
from us with the terrible rebuke, " Ye may 
no longer be my stewards ! " Oh for the 
descent of a Pentecostal fire to consume this 
" wood, hay, and stubble " of pomp and 
luxury ! O ye who long to see the self- 
pampering churches brought back to a hardier 
self-denial and a holier self-consecration ! I 
pray you that ye besiege the mercy-seat, and 
labor, too, for soul-humbling, church-purify- 
ing revivals. 

But I must not weary you with the discus- 
sion of a widening theme. As we close, we 
seem to be looking out upon the stupendous 
conflict between light and darkness, between 



292 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

the hosts of truth and the hosts of error. The 
field of this conflict is not a narrow vale of 
Elah : it is the wide, wide world. Like the 
swarming squadrons of Philistia on the moun- 
tain-sides, stand the combined innumerable 
hosts of heathenism, of the false prophet, and 
the man of sin. Like the brazen-mailed giant 
of Gath, stands Antichrist, — proud, stubborn, 
impious, and defiant. As the shepherd's boy 
of Bethlehem came forth to confront Israel's 
foe, so come forth the missionary band of 
Christ. They are inferior indeed to the foe 
in numbers ; but a single man, with God on 
his side, is in the majority. In the missionary 
band of Christendom are represented eighty- 
five difl'erent organizations. Of these, twenty- 
two hail from Great Britain ; twenty from our 
beloved Union ; thirteen from Germany ; nine 
from little Holland ; seven from the lands of 
the " Norsemen ; " one from France, and the 
remainder from British colonies. Of these 
organizations, the two largest are the " Wes- 
leyan Society " of England, and the " American 
Board of Foreign Missions." As the roll of 



THE shepherd's SLING. 293 

the American Board is called, three hundred 
and twenty missionaries answer to their names. 
The Presbyterian Board have two hundred and 
forty in the field. These are the men of whom 
the most eminent Scotch painter once said to 
me, " America has produced many great ar- 
tists and authors and orators ; but the most 
superior body of men she has yet furnished 
are her missionaries." Each one of them is 
equipped with the staff and the sling. Each 
one has in his scrip the five smooth stones 
from 

*' Siloa's brook, 
That flows fast by the oracles of God." 

To our weak faith, these missionary bands 
seem small and few for the moral conquest of 
the globe. But who can tell how many Mar- 
tyns and Winslows and Duff's the eye of God 
may discern yet waiting in the household of 
Jesse ] Who can say that there is not now 
upon his mother's knee another Luther, who 
shall lead the last great onset against the man 
of sin ; or another Calvin, to vindicate the 
cross before European scepticism ; or another 



294 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

Wesley, to awake with Gideon's trumpet a for- 
mal church to fresh revivals and a loftier zeal ? 
Who can tell how soon the eye of God may 
see an American missionary preaching Christ 
in the Mosque of Omar, or proclaiming the 
downfall of the Papacy under the frescoed 
dome of St. Peter's ? 

That time is coming ! It is eighteen cen- 
turies nearer than when the first missionary 
concert of prayer was held in the " upper 
room " at Jerusalem. It is sixty years nearer 
than when the first American missionary sailed 
from Boston wharf to the shores of India. It 
is as sure to come as to-morrow's sunrise. Do 
you ask. When will that time arrive 1 I an- 
swer : It will come when the Church of Christ 
shall pray as the first missionary concert 
prayed at Jerusalem : it will come when all 
the followers of Jesus shall write Holiness to 
the Lord on every dollar in their cofi'ers ; 
when the Church shall consecrate all her 
children to self-denial and to holy toils, and 
shall train every David from his cradle to wield 
the sling! Then, all the world shall know 



THE shepherd's SLING. 295 

that God saveth not with sword and spear ; 
for the battle is the Lord's, and on the brow 
of the Enthroned Lamb shall rest the diadem 
of victory. 



HEBER AND HIS HYMN. 



'T^HEEE have been men who have won an 
-*■ honorable immortahty in an hour. A 
brave word fitly spoken, or a noble deed 
promptly done, has given them a place on the 
bead-roll of fame for ever. Sometimes in a 
happy moment of inspiration a poet or an 
orator has " said or sung " what will last for 
ages. 

One of these happy songsters, whose grand- 
est strain was born in an hour, but which the 
world shall never willingly let die, was Regi- 
nald Heber, Bishop of Christ's flock in Cal- 
cutta. If the great mass of Christians around 
the globe were asked to name the two English 
bishops whose memory is most dear to them, 
they would probably name Jeremy Taylor and 
Reginald Heber. Yet the veneration and 
gratitude felt towards the latter is mainly 



HEBER AND .HIS HYMN. 297 

founded upon a few lines which he threw off 
in a sudden inspiration, and which could be 
written on a single page. 

Reginald Heber was born at Malpas, in 
Cheshire, on the 21st of April, 1783. He 
was a precocious boy, and at seven years of 
age he had translated Phaedrus into English 
verse. His prize poem at Oxford University 
on " Palestine," written in his twentieth 
year, stands at tlie head of that class of some- 
what ephemeral productions. His " Pales- 
tine " will live, and so will his tender and 
graceful lines to his wife at Bombay, and so 
will his UEiutical hymn, " When through the 
torn sail the tempest is streaming." But all 
his poetry, and his Bampton lectures, and his 
able Quarterly Review articles, are weighed 
down by his single matchless missionary hymn. 
Its composition was on this wise. 

While Reginald Heber was rector of the 
Episcopal Church at Hodnet, in Shropshire, 
he went to pay a visit to his father-in-law. Dr. 
Shipley, then Vicar of Wrexham, on the bor- 
der of Wales. Heber was in his thirty-sixth 

13* 



298 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

year, and had come to Wrexham to deliver 
the first of a series of Sunday evening lect- 
ures in Dr. Shipley's church. In the morn- 
ing of that same day, Dr. Shipley was to 
deliver a discourse in behalf of the " Society 
for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign 
Parts." 

On the afternoon before " Whit-Sunday " 
(1819), Heber and his father-in-law sat chat- 
ting with a few friends in Dr. Shipley's par- 
lor. Dr. Shipley, knowing his son-in-law's 
happy gift in rapid composition, said to him, 
" Write something for us to sing at the service 
to-morrow morning." Short notice that, for 
a man to achieve his immortality. Heber 
retired to another part of the room, and in a 
little time had prepared three verses, of which 
the first one ran thus : — 

" From Greenland's icy mountains ; 

From Iidia's coral strand, 
Where Afric's sunny fountains 

Roll down their golden sand ; 
From many an ancie , it river ; 

From many a palmy plain, 
They call us to deliver 

Their land from error's chain." 



HEBER AND HIS HYMN. 299 

Heber read the three verses over, and only 
altered a single word. The seventh line of 
the second verse was — 

" The savage in his blindness." 

The author erased that word, and substi- 
tuted for it the better word heathen. " There, 
there," coolly remarked Dr. Shipley, " that 
will do very well." Heber was not satisfied, 
and said, " No, no : the sense is not complete." 
In spite of his father's earnest protest, Heber 
withdrew for a few moments longer, and then 
coming back read the following glorious bugle 
blast which rings like the reveille of the 
millennial morning : — 

*' Waft, waft, ye winds, the story, 

And you, ye waters, roll ! 
Till, like a sea of glory, 

It spreads from pole to pole ! 
Till o'er our ransomed nature, 

The Lamb for sinners slain, 
Redeemer, King, Creator, 

In bliss returns to reign." 

"What shall we sing it tol" inquired Dr. 
Shipley. Mr. Heber, who had a fine musical 



300 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

ear, suggested a popular air called " 'Twas 
when the seas were roaring." The suggestion 
was adopted, and on the next morning the 
people of Wrexham church listened to the 
"first rehearsal" of a lyric which has since 
been echoed by millions of voices around the 
globe. The air to which it was sung origi- 
nally has given place, at least in our American 
churches, to a sonorous and lofty tune com- 
posed by Dr. Lowell Mason. The air is 
worthy of the hymn, and both are perfect. 
No profane hymn-tinker ever dared to lay his 
bungling finger on a single syllable of those 
four stanzas which the Holy Spirit moved 
Reginald Heber to write. Little did the young 
rector of Hodnet dream, as he listened to the 
lines sung that Sabbath morning, that he was 
catching the first strains of his own immor- 
tality. He " builded better than he knew." 
He did more to waft the story of Calvary 
around the earth than if he had preached like 
Apollos, or had founded a board of missions. 
In the " monthly concerts," held in New Eng- 
land school-houses, in frontier cabins, on the 



HEBER AND HIS HYMN. 301 

decks of missionary ships bound to " Ceylon's 
Isle," and in the vast assemblies of the Amer- 
ican Board, Heber's trumpet-hymn has been 
sung with swelling voices and gushing tears. 
It is the marching music to which Christ's 
hosts " keep step " as they advance to the 
conquest of the globe. 

Heber lived but seven years after the com- 
position of his masterpiece. In June, 1823, 
he departed for Calcutta as the missionary 
Bishop of India. For three years he toiled 
and travelled incessantly, and wherever he 
went his apostolic sweetness of character and 
benignity won even the " heathen in their 
blindness." After a laborious day's work at 
Trichinopoly, he went to his bath to refresh 
his weary frame. He remained in the bath- 
room until his attendants became alarmed, and 
when they came in they found Reginald Heber 
asleep in Jesus. His gentle spirit had stolen 
away to join in the " song of Moses and of 
the Lamb." 



NOTHING BUT LEAVES. 

A Reverie for the Close of the Year. 



TESUS was on his way from Bethany to 
^ Jerusalem, — " hungry." He espied a fig- 
tree afar off, well laden with leaves. As that 
tree puts forth its fruit in advance of its foli- 
age, when a man should discover leaves on 
it he would, of course, expect to find figs. 
The successor having already appeared, he 
would look for the forerunner. 

Jesus hastens to the tree which had tele- 
graphed to him already that it was in bearing 
condition; and lo! "he found nothing hut 
leaves.'' Forthwith he dooms it to perpetual 
barrenness. " No man eat fruit of thee here- 
after for ever." The deceitful tree thus cursed 
of its Owner withered down to its very roots. 

Here is a parable for the close of the year. 
It is full of tender and touching solemnity to 



NOTHING BUT LEAVES. 303 

thousands of our readers. This parable from 
history teaches us the worthlessness of relig- 
ious promises that are never fulfilled, and the 
guilt of appearing to be fruit-bearers when the 
eye of God sees " nothing but leaves." 

There is no sin in promises. Cherry-trees 
must issue their white and fragrant " promis- 
sory notes " in May, or there would be no pay- 
ment in delicious fruit at the end of the allotted 
sixty days. God makes precious promises to 
us ; and a converted heart is only in the line 
of duty when it makes a solemn promise, or 
covenant, to the Church and its Head Christ 
Jesus. There is no sin in a church-covenant 
honestly made. The sin is in breaking it. 

How full of leaves was the plausible fig-tree 
on the road to Bethany ! How profuse of 
promises is many a young professor, as he 
stands up laden with the foliage on which the 
dew-drops of hope are glistening ! How much 
his pastor expects from him. He makes no 
reserve when he covenants to " consecrate 
himself, all that he is, and all that he has, 
to the service of his Eedeemer." As many 



304 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

a reader sees this solemn sentence, it sends 
a pang to their hearts. That was their 
promise. They once put forth just such 
" leaves " before their Master's eye, and be- 
fore the eyes of men, and led them to expect 
an abundance of fruit. For a time the glossy 
leaves of profession made a fair show. But 
when the novelty of a new position had worn 
off, and that time of reaction came which al- 
ways follows a strong mental excitement, then 
the yoke began to gall the conscience, and 
every religious duty became an irksome drudg- 
ery. The Cross lost its charm ; prayer lost 
its power ; the Word of God lost its attrac- 
tion ; the very name of Jesus lost its hold ; 
and church-membership became a hateful 
mask which its owner was ashamed to wear, 
and yet afraid to fling away. Before the 
world, the fig-tree still bore leaves ; but be- 
neath them was utter barrenness. 

My backsliding friend ! this tells the sad 
story of your past year's life. As you look 
back over the barren year now closing, you 
find nothing hut leaves. Your name is still on 



NOTHING BUT LEAVES. 305 

a church-record, but this fruitless wasted year 
has had no " record on high." Out of all the 
three hundred and sixty days that God has 
given you, not one has been passed with 
Christ, not one is marked with " a white 
stone " of fidelity. Instead of a sheaf, you 
have not gathered a single spear. Instead 
of leading others to Christ, you have not even 
followed Him yourself. Instead of growing in 
grace, you have lost even the self-respect which 
a false life always forfeits. The past is past. 
Fold up the pages of this dead, barren, wasted 
year, and write on it the bitter inscription, 
" Nothing but leaves." 

Will you bear with a few plain truths even 
though they have a sharp edge? You need 
them, and they are spoken in love. The 
simple fact is that you are " backsliders in 
heart." The best evidence of this assertion is 
that you do not feel as you once felt, you do 
not do what you once did, you do not enjoy what 
you once enjoyed, you do not pray as you once 
prayed, and you do not live as you did in the 
days of your " first love." You are ofi" the 



306 . THOUGHT-HIVES. 

track, and are on a track that leads away 
from heaven. You are more intent on making 
money, or in pleasure-hunting, or in pushing 
up into social promotions, than you are in 
serving God, or in trying to save sinners 
from hell. You would blush if you attempted 
to ask an impenitent sinner to become what 
you profess to he ! Your worldly self-seek- 
ings have only been a climb up to that dizzy 
" mast-head " from which you may be flung 
off the farther into the yawning sea. If you 
confess your sins to God, you still cling to 
them. And if you dealt as faithlessly with 
your fellow-men as you deal with your Lord, 
your note or your word would not be taken by 
a solitary person for a moment I While you 
live thus, you can have no peace of conscience. 
While you live thus, neither the Church nor 
the world fully trusts you ; for you once left 
the world to join the Church, and then slipped 
away from the very fellowship which you still 
profess to hold. While you live so, you are 
nullifying your pastor's labors, and voting de- 
liberately against a revival of religion in your 



NOTHING BUT LEAVES. 307 

church. Not only are you yielding " nothing 
but leaves," but they are the brown, withered, 
worthless leaves, such as the wintry winds are 
now whirling through the forests. 

'* Nothing but leaves : the Spirit grieves 
Over a wasted life ; 
Sin committed while conscience slept, 
Promises made, but never kept. 
Idle words for earnest deeds, — 
Nothing but leaves ! 

And shall we meet the Master so. 

Bearing our withered leaves ? 
The Saviour looks for perfect fruit : 
We stand before him ashamed and mute, 

Waiting that word he breathes, — 
Nothing hut leaves! " 

Such are the sad thoughts and sorrowful 
self-reproaches that are troubling the spirits of 
many professed Christians as they review the 
year now closing. They admit that they have 
backslidden from their " first love," and have 
borne no fruit to their Master's glory. But 
the best repentance for sin is to forsake it ; and 
the only amends that can be made for neg- 
lected duties is to resume them, and perform 



308 THOUGHT- HIVES. 

them at once. Do not stop, then, my brother, 
with sighing and sorrowing over the lost year 
that is just going with its accounts to God. 
Lay hold of the incoming year by the fore- 
lock, and begin it with a new consecration of 
yourself to Jesus. Go back to that deserted 
place of prayer. Put on the armor afresh, — 
humbled, yet hopeful. Seek such a reconver- 
sion as Peter had when he came out of Pilate's 
garden, weeping but forgiven. Make for your- 
self a "happy new year" by commencing a 
new life ! " This battle is lost" said one of 
his marshals to Napoleon ; " but there is 
time enough before sundown to fight another 
and win it."" The opening year calls us to 
new resolutions, new hopes, and new consecra- 
tions. It has glorious revivals in store for us, 
if we will but resolve — with God's help — 
to cover with golden fruit the boughs that have 
been bearing nothing hut leaves ! 



HYMNS OF OUR OWN LAND. 



/^^F all the hymns born on this side of the 
^^ Atlantic, the most celebrated, and the 
most perfect in execution, is Dr. Eay Palmer's 
" My faith looks up to Thee." The history of 
this exquisite production, which, like Heber's 
missionary hymn, was thrown off " in a heat," 
we have already published. The venerable 
Dr. Muhlenberg is about telling to the world 
the biography of his famous lines, " I would 
not live alway : " probably they rank next to 
Palmer's in popularity among our American 
churches. 

The first hymn ever composed by one of our 
countrymen, that has won permanent place in 
all our collections, came from that "king of 
New England," Timothy Dwight. While he 
was President of Yale College he wielded a 
wider intellectual and religious influence than 



310 THOUGHT- HIVES. 

any man of his day in the American pulpit. 
His discourses on "Theology" were in every 
minister's study : they were a text-book for 
students of divinity while Andover and Prince- 
ton were in their infancy. But they have 
gradually been supplanted, and few of our 
younger clergymen ever open the four formida- 
ble but almost obsolete volumes. President 
D wight will live longest in his one classic 
hymn, whose first verse is so familiar to 
us all, — 

** I love Thy kingdom, Lord, 
The house of Thine abode, 
The Church our blest Redeemer saved 
With his own precious blood." 

It is a metrical version of the one hundred 
and thirty-seventh Psalm ; and it contains one 
verse of pathetic sweetness, worthy of Watts 
or Cowper. In addressing the Church of God, 
he passionately exclaims, — 

** For her my tears shall fall ; 
For her my prayers ascend ; 
To her my cares and toils be given, 
Till toils and cares shall end." 

This fine hymn was born in the first year of 



HYMNS OF OUR OWN LAND. 811 

this century, while Dr. D wight was at Yale. 
His more ambitious poem of " Greenfield 
Hill" is now forgotten, except in the families 
who still live on that verdant and picturesque 
spot. His theological treatises have climbed 
away into upper shelves. And the great and 
good Timothy Dwight, like several other good 
men, owes his main chance of immortality to 
a score or two of lines, which he could have 
written on a small sheet of note-paper. 

The classic city of New Haven has given 
existence to another hymn, which Dr. Leonard 
Bacon says is " unsurpassed in the English 
language, and as near perfection as any unin- 
spired production can be." This is rather ex- 
travagant praise of a composition which not 
one person in an hundred has ever heard of. 
But it is certainly an exquisite hymn both in 
thought and in diction. If any of my readers 
will turn to the 557th of Dr. C. S. Eobinson's 
" Songs of the Sanctuary," they will find it un- 
der the head of " Hymns of Repentance and 
Reception of Christ." It opens with the utter- 
ance of lowliest abasement. In the second 



312 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

verse, joy breaks in upon the penitent from 
the loving countenance and voice of Jesus. 
The third verse is "a gem of purest ray 
serene." My readers will thank me for giving 
these stanzas complete : — 

*' Trembling before Thine awful throne, 
O Lord ! in dust my sins I own ; 
Justice and mercy for my life 
Contend ! Oh, smile, and heal the strife ! 

The Saviour smiles ! Upon my soul 
New tides of hope tumultuous roll ; 
His voice proclaims my pardon found ; 
Seraphic transport wings the sound. 

Earth has a joy unknown in heaven, 
The new-born peace of sins forgiven ! 
Tears of such pure and deep delight, 
Ye angels ! never dimmed your sight." 

The thought of this third stanza is ex- 
panded in three more verses of most magnifi- 
cent imagery. So grand a hymn ought to have 
an air adapted to it, and it would soon become 
an universal favorite. 

The author was Mr. Augustus L. Hillhouse, 
one of that cultured family from whom " Plill- 
house Avenue " is named. He was born at New 
Haven, in 1792, and died near Paris twelve 



HYMNS OF OUR OWN LAND. 313 

years ago. While in France he composed 
this graceful and melodious hymn, and left it 
as a legacy of love to '' that Name that is 
above everv other." 

About the year 1847, the late Dr. George 
W. Bethune, then pastor of a church in Phil- 
adelphia, published a hymn of rare beauty 
which soon found its way into nearly all the 
later collections. The reigning idea of this 
song of triumph over death is similar to that 
of Dr. Csesar Malan's, ^' Non, ce n'est pas 
mourir," a French production, which has been 
well translated by Professor R. P. Dunn of 
Brown University. Before Dr. Bethune's re- 
mains were borne to their last resting-place in 
Greenwood Cemetery, these notes of victory 
were sung : — 

" It is not death to die, 

To leave this weary road, 
And 'midst the brotherhood on high 
To be at home with God. 

It is not death to close 

The eye long dimmed by tears, 
And wake in glorious repose, 

To spend eternal years. 
U 



314 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

It is not death to bear 

The wrench that sets us free 
From dungeon chain, to breathe the air 

Of boundless liberty. 

It is not death to fling 

Aside this sinful dust, 
And rise, on strong, exulting wing. 

To live among the just. 

Jesus, Thou Prince of life ! 

Thy chosen cannot die ; 
Like Thee, they conquer in the strife, 

To reign with Thee on high." 

To many of our readers the Rev. Dr. Charles 
S. Robinson of New York is known as the 
successful compiler of the " Songs for the 
Sanctuary." But only a few sharp eyes may 
have detected his name appended to the 773d 
hymn as its author. Those who do not pos- 
sess this volume may thank me for inserting 
Dr. Robinson's sweet hymn entire : — 

'* Saviour ! I follow on, 

Guided by Thee, 
Seeing not yet the hand 

That leadeth me ; 
Hushed be my heart and still. 
Fear I no further ill. 
Only to meet Thy will 

My will shall be. 



HYMNS OF OUR OWN LAND. 815 

Riven tlie rock for me 

Thirst to relieve, 
Manna from heaven falls 

Fresh every; eve ; 
Never a want severe 
Causeth my eye a tear, 
But Thou art whispering near, 

* Only believe ! ' 

Often to Marah's brink 

Have I been brought ; 
Shrinking the cup to drink, 

Help I have sought ; 
And with the prayer's ascent, 
Jesus the branch has rent, — 
Quickly relief he sent, 

Sweetening the draught. 

Saviour ! I long to walk 

Closer with Thee ; 
Led by Thy guiding hand, 

Ever to be ; 
Constantly near Thy side. 
Quickened and purified. 
Living for Him who died 

Freely for me ! " 

When that most apostoUc minister of Jesus 
Christ, Dr. William Augustus Muhlenberg 
composed his world-known lines, " I would 
not live alway" (in 1824), it is said that he 
was suffering under a sore heart-sorrow. A 



316 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

spirit of mournfalness over " life's woes " 
breathes through the poem. But in later 
years he has expressed some doubts whether 
the hymn is not too lugubrious for a " happy 
warrior" in the glorious service of Imraanuel. 
In a letter now lying before me, the sunny- 
hearted old man says, that " Paul's ' to depart 
and be with Christ ' is far better than Job's 
' I would not live alway.' " 

Like many other hymns, this precious pro- 
duction of Dr. Muhlenberg's genius has suf- 
fered many mutilations. The following verse, 
which originally closed the hymn, is now 
omitted from most of our books of metrical 
devotion : — 

" That heavenly music, hark ! sweet in the air, 
The notes of the harpers, how clear ringing there ! 
And see, soft unfolding those portals of gold, 
The King, all arrayed in His beauty behold ! 
. ■ Oh, give me, oh, give me the wings of a dove. 

To adore Him, be near Him, en wrapt with His love ! 
I but wait for the summons, I list for the word. 
Alleluia ! Amen ! Evermore with the Lord ! " 

Of one more American hymn we must speak 
before closing this paragraph. Its author was 



HYMNS OF OUR OWN LAND. 317 

my beloved friend and teacher the late Dr. 
Joseph Addison Alexander. He certainly 
never dreamed that it would find its way into 
any collection for public worship when he threw 
it oflf, one evening, rapidly from his versatile 
pen. The day after its composition he mailed 
it to Eev. Dr. Hall, then the editor of the " Sun- 
day School Journal." The lines were published 
under the title of " The Doomed Man," and 
they describe with solemn and terrible energy 
the fate of a sinner who has " crossed the 
hidden boundary between God's patience and 
His wrath." These fearful lines are not so 
much a hymn as a thrilling appeal to the 
impenitent, in metre. They were at first circu- 
lated in small hand-bills through prayer- 
meetings, in seasons of revival. They went 
the rounds of religious journals, and finally 
lodged in Dr. Robinson's Hymn-book, and in 
one or two others. As originally written, the 
opening verse was — 

" There is a time, we know not when, 
A point, we know not where, 
That marks the destiny of men 
To glorj, or despair." 



318 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

If Hillhouse's hymn is a prelude to the 
minstrelsy of heaven, these solemn lines of 
Alexander may be styled the dirge of a lost 
soul against whom the gates of heaven are 
closed for ever ! 



BEFORE THE JUDGMENT-SEAT. 



" \ll T^E shall all stand before the judgment- 
^ ^ seat of Christ." The colossal di- 
mensions of that assemblage utterly stagger 
me. I try to imagine all the present popula- 
tion of the American republic — forty millions 
strong — convened in one mass meeting. To 
them I add all the existing peoples on the 
globe. Then I begin to add the generations 
of the dead. But the tremendous total breaks 
me down. There is not room in one little 
finite mind to put the bare idea. But there is 
room in God's mind ; and there will be room 
enough too for them all " before the judgment- 
seat of Christ." He who telleth all the stars 
of heaven by name will recognize every single 
individual so closely that not even a beggar- 
child will be missed. Each person will stand 



320 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

as distinct and alone before the eye of the 
Judge as Warren Hastings stood before the 
tribunal of the House of Lords. No one must 
imagine that he will be " lost in the crowd," 
or escape that flame-bright eye. 

Upon that throne of judgment, Jesus shall 
sit ; for the Father hath committed all judg- 
ment to the Son of Man. The despised Naza- 
rene shall then come in his glory to that great 
white throne, and all his holy angels with 
him. Is it a violent supposition that he will 
then bear the marks of the nails and the spear 
of Calvary on his glorified form? We trow 
not. Sinners shall then look upon Him whom 
they have pierced^ and shall wail because of 
him. The heirs of glory shall see in those 
•scars of the cross their title to an everlasting 
inheritance. It will be upon the brow that 
once wore the crown of thorns that the impe- 
rial diadems will then be placed. John in his 
vision saw " on His head many crowns." 

Before that dazzling tribunal, we are told 
that '' the books shall be opened," and that 
every man will be judged out of those things 



BEFORE THE JUDGMENT SEAT. 321 

which are written in the books, according to 
his works. The wonder grows. All the 
myriad milHons of the globe in one assem- 
blage ! And every act of all these innumer- 
able myriads brought out, and weighed, and 
passed upon with the most infallible equity ! 
Yet we must accept this statement, or reject 
the whole revelation. For we are distinctly 
told that God '' will bring every work into 
judgment, with every secret thing, whether it 
be good or evil." Fasten your mind to that 
fact, my friend. Just consider that you will 
be called to give account for every mercy and 
every moment, every talent and every trust, 
for every Sabbath and every sermon, for every 
line and letter of God's law and God's love. 
For all these the Omniscient Judge will 
" reckon with you." And for nothing may 
you expect a closer and more searching in- 
quiry than for your use or abuse of your influ- 
ence. And suppose that your influence may 
have thrown some fellow-creature ofl" of the 
track that leads to heaven ! Are you sure that 
you wdll be admitted to the realms of bliss 

14* 



322 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

from which you have helped to keep another 
out ? Think about this a moment before you 
sing again those self-assuring lines about 
" reading your title clear to mansions in the 
skies." It will certainly require an infinite 
wisdom in the Supreme Judge to unravel the 
tangled web of daily life in which so many 
good men have been instrumental in producing 
so many bad acts of their fellow-creatures. 
Will all these sins of God's people which mis- 
led them into iniquity go entirely unpunished % 
I tremble at the very question. 

*' There's pity for the hardened knave, 
And mercy for the thief that stole ; 
But God in justice ne'er forgave 
The murder of a human soul." 

At that august judgment-seat every one will 
be dealt with in the impartial spirit of a justice 
that cannot err a hair's breadth. There can be 
no bribery in that court. No titled sinner will 
reap any favors from his rank. No cunning 
sinner can take advantage of the technicalities 
of law. No appeal can be made to a higher 
tribunal. No wdly advocate can befog the case, 



BEFORE THE JUDGMENT-SEAT. 323 

or move for an arrest of judgment. For once 
the universe will behold a tribunal on which 
infinite justice will preside, and dispense de- 
cisions with a spirit of ineffable love. 

We learn beforehand that, in that Supreme 
Court, those who " knew their Master's will 
and did it not " shall be condemned to " many- 
stripes." Oh ! it will be a terrible thing to go 
up to that judgro.ent-seat of Christ from before 
some pulpits, and out of some communities ! 
It will certainly fare better with the poor 
wretch who stumbled into eternity from the 
heathenish haunts of Sodom, than with the 
cultured sinner who trampled on ten thou- 
sand Gospel truths in his guilty road to the 
judgment-seat. To topple over into hell from 
the very summit of the Hill of Zion will be a 
frightful fall. If faithful pastors ever shudder 
at that judgment-seat, it will be when they 
see what is becoming of some of their own 
congregations. The very people who once 
melted and wept under revival sermons may 
then be calling upon the rocks and mountains 
to fall on them, and hide them from the w^rnth 



324 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

of the rejected Lamb. Perhaps the reader 
of this paragraph may be one of those very 
people. 

There is another thought which always 
weaves itself into every conception I ever 
form of, the judgment scene. And that is 
the excruciating separations which that day 
will make. All the heart-breaking farewells 
of earth melt into nothing when compared 
with those leave-takings for an endless eter- 
nity. Who dares to conceive of them I How 
well I remember the shudder with which, in 
early childhood, I used to listen to that home- 
ly but thrilling hymn : — 

" Oh ! there will be parting, parting, parting — 

At the judgment-seat of Christ, 
Brothers and sisters there will part, 
Parents and children there will part. 

Will part to meet no more ! " 

If we would but run that dividing line — 
even in our imaginations — more often now, 
it would make us more tenderly faithful to 
the souls of those we love. God save us 
from the agony of breaking away from our 
own children then — and for ever ! 



BEFORE THE JUDGMENT-SEAT. 325 

Such are a few of the thoughts which 
crowd into my mind as I sit to-night alone, 
and let the light of that tremendous judgment 
scene break in upon me. It is an awful mys- 
tery; but through the mystery I see clearly 
a righteous Saviour on his throne, a heaven 
of glory, a hell of torment, — and every 
single human being bound either to the one or 
to the other. "With the " fierce light" of that 
judgment-seat beating upon our path, let us 
all enter upon a year that brings us the nearer 
towards it. 



HIGHER! 



T T THAT a bugle-call the veteran Apostle 
' ^ sounded in the ears of his younger 
brethren at Colosse when he exclaimed, " If 
ye, then, be risen with Christ, seek those things 
which are above.'' In whatever way we ap- 
ply these words, whether as meaning a prepa- 
ration for heaven, or a clearer view of heaven, 
or heavenly-mindedness, they still breathe the 
same spirit of aspiration. Jesus had delivered 
Paul's brethren from the sepulchre of sin and 
corruption. They had risen with Christ! 
Now, instead of sitting in the gates of the 
tomb, breathing the chill, dreary atmosphere 
of the charnel-house, Paul exhorts them to 
cast away their grave-clothes, and to live as 
Christ's freemen, and as the happy heirs to a 
magnificent inheritance. Look higher I — Zw;e 
higher! These two words seem to condense 



HIGHER ! 327 

the grand old man's inspiring call to his 
fellow-soldiers in the warfare for Christ. 

There is the greatest difference in the world 
between the " high look " of sinful pride and 
the high look which every blood-bought heir 
of glory should ^x on his everlasting inheri- 
tance. It is not only the privilege, but the 
duty, of every converted soul to realize to the 
utmost, and to enjoy, the infinite blessings 
which flow from a union with Jesus. If 
" Christ liveth in me," I ought to be a living 
man, — a rich man, — a cheerful, athletic man, 
— a holy and a happy man. I ought to enjoy 
the open vision of Jesus as my Prophet, my 
Priest, and my King. I ought to be strength- 
ened with all might in the inner man, with 
long-suffering and joyfulness. I ought to be 
filled with the Spirit, and to rejoice with a joy 
unspeakable and full of glory. 

Do the majority of God's people thus 
" seek the things that are above,'' and live in 
the higher atmosphere of perpetual fellowship 
with Christ ? We fear not. Thousands in 
our churches are barely alive. Their pulse is 



328 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

feeble. Their joys are few. Their assurance 
of hope is so scanty that they can only articu- 
late, with a painful hesitation, " Well, I hope 
that I am a Christian. I think I am con- 
verted. If I can only get inside of the gate 
of heaven I shall be satisfied." There is no 
muscle in their faith, no power in their prayer, 
no ring in their devotions, no inspiration in 
their example. They see through a glass 
darkly, and the clouds run low in their spirit- 
ual skies. 

All this poor, meagre experience is better 
than — something worse. It is better than 
sheer impenitence, or rank unbelief. A sick 
child is better than a dead child ; but to make 
a sick child well is the best of all. What, 
then, shall these halting, feeble, doubting, and 
almost useless professors do? Look down? 
Lie down? Stay down] No ! It is the imme- 
diate duty of every one who has been born into 
Christ to seek the very highest and holiest and 
happiest life which Divine grace can impart to 
them. Just what happened to the disciples 
when they were endowed with the " power 



HIGHER ! 329 

from on high " may, in no small measure, be 
the experience of every Christian in these 
days who will seeTc a fresh baptism of the 
Holy Ghost, and make a complete consecra- 
tion of himself to his Redeemer. What a dif- 
ferent man Peter is in the " Acts of the 
Apostles " from the half-finished, crude, and 
inconstant Peter in the Book of John ! No 
more denials of his Master now ! No more 
vain boastings and cowardly lies! Peter on 
the day of Pentecost is as superior to Peter in 
Pilate's hall as a stalwart man is superior to 
a puny, stumbling child. He had now risen 
with Christ, and into Christ ; he had been bap- 
tized into a clearer illumination and a more 
^OYioxi^ possession of the unsearchable riches 
of Christ. We never hear of his ignominious 
fall again. He has climbed into the higher 
life of holy unioii icith his Lord. 

Something similar to this has been the 
experience of tens of thousands of God's 
people. They have come to Jesus on their 
knees, and sought a new baptism. They have 
begun to clear out the sins that monopolized 



330 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

all the house-room in the heart. They have 
confessed their guiltiness in dragging out such 
a half-dead existence. They have sought a 
reconversion, a new quickening from on high. 
New light has burst in upon them. New joys 
have been awakened. They have put on 
Christ, and are arrayed in a robe of spiritual 
beauty that is " white and glistening." In 
the ecstasy of this fresh consecration they can 
sing with Charles Wesley, — 

** Thou, O Christ, art all I want ; 
More than all in Thee IJindy 

What different men and women they are in 
the Church of Jesus ! How differently they 
pray ! And with what spiritual power they 
approach the unconverted, and persuade thera 
to come to the cross ! 

Payson of Portland had such an experience 
as this. The great President Edwards tells 
us, that, after reading a certain passage in 
God's Word, he had a fresh baptism from 
above, and " there came into his soul, and 
was diffused through it, a new sense of the 



higher! 331 

glory of the Divine Being." "From that 
time," he says, " / began to have a new idea 
of Christ, and of the work of redemption, 
and the glorious way of salvation by him. I 
had a view, that was extraordinary, of the 
glory of the Son of God, and of his wonder- 
ful grace." Under this celestial baptism, he 
tells us that he was in a flood of tears, and 
wept aloud for joy ! 

Now this is the true " higher life^' about 
which so many crude and extravagant things 
have been written by men of more enthusiasm 
than theological accuracy. What Payson, 
Edwards, Eutherford, and Wesley felt, we 
may feel in our humbler measure. Every 
child of Christ should covet it intensely. This, 
too, is what our churches need in this day of 
apathy and self-indulgence and barrenness. 
We need the new consecration unto Christ, 
and the new baptism into Christ. An ungodly 
world will never be converted by men and 
women who are barely gasping for life them- 
selves. Brother ! sister ! get a new hold on 



332 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

Christ if you would draw sinners from the pit ! 
Let your battle-song be, — 

*' I have done at length with trifling : 

Henceforth, O thou soul of mine ! 
Thou must take up sword and gauntlet, 

Waging warfare most Divine ! 
Oh, how many a glorious record 

Had the angels of me kept, 
Had I done instead of doubted. 

Had I ran instead of crept ! " 



A SABBATH MOENING IN GEEEN- 
WOOD. 



T^HERE is but one Greenwood in the 
■*- world. It has no peer among the ceme- 
teries of Europe. " Kensal Green," near Lon- 
don, is mainly interesting from its containing 
the ashes of several modern men of genius, 
like Hood, Jerrold, and Thackeray. Pere la 
Chaise is a crowded huddle of marbles, with- 
out order or comeliness. The charm of plain, 
unornamented " Grange Cemetery " all centres 
around that spot where Chalmers and Hugh 
Miller slumber. Among American burial- 
places Greenwood fairly bears away the crown. 
" We have seen nothing yet like this," said 
two of the London delegates to the Evan- 
gelical Alliance, as they sat with us, at a rich 
October sunset hour, on the brow of "Battle 
Hill," and gazed over the wonderful panorama. 
They ranked that view next to Niagara. 



334 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

The true time to see Greenwood is when 
its thousands of dogwood trees are blossom- 
ing in all their glory. The creamy white con- 
trasts with the tender green of opening leaves, 
as the white sea-foam flashes amid the emerald 
waters in a driving gale. 

At every turn there is a new apocalypse of 
beauty. One would expect to find such a laby- 
rinth of loveliness crowded with visitants ; but 
Prospect Park is filled every day with throngs 
who go there for the hundredth time, while the 
matchless avenues of Greenwood show only 
" here and there a traveller." So true is it that 
the mass of mankind care less to see than to 
be seen. 

Never did we behold Greenwood on a Sab- 
bath morning until lately ; and never before did 
we so feel its bewitching, subduing, and tran- 
quillizing spell. We went at an early hour, to 
stand beside the open grave of a friend's only 
and beloved son, whose " purposes were brok- 
en oif " by sudden death. It seemed almost 
a mockery to the heart-stricken parents, that 
the sun beamed so brightly and the birds 



A SABBATH MORNING IN GREENWOOD. 835 

caroLed their morning songs so blithely among 
the trees. 

As we rode under the gateway to the ceme- 
tery, on the morning of a day that was a 
perfect " bridal of the earth and sky," we 
seemed to have entered another world. It 
was as when, of old, the women and the two 
disciples came " early to the sepulchre." The 
city of the living was left behind. The city 
of the dead greeted us to its voiceless streets. 
But no gloom clouded the pure golden air. 
No wails smote upon our ears. Peace, joy, 
praise, seemed to fill the whole leafy temple, 
as the strains of an organ fill the vaulted 
arches of a cathedral. It seemed as if Green- 
wood, with its congregation one hundred thou- 
sand strong, was breaking out into its morn- 
ing hymn, — 

*' Welcome, sweet day of rest, 
That saw the Lord arise ! " 

Here, too, they are keeping tbeir Sabbath, as 
aforetime ! Here the departed pastors are 
mingling with their flocks, as they once did in 
yonder sanctuaries. Here is gathered the vast 



336 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

Sabbath school of forty thousand children, all 
clothed in white raiment. I see them not ; yet 
they are beside me and around me. My own 
precious boy is among them. From his lips I 
seem to catch the familiar strain of his favorite 
child-hymn, — 

*' Jesus loves me, lie who died 
Heaven's gate to open wide. 
He has washed away my sin, 
And bade his httle chil J come in." 

Other children, in neighboring plots of 
green earth, take up the strain. No lessons 
are repeated here this morning. No sermons 
are delivered in this vast sanctuary. No pro- 
fane pride flaunts its fineries and parades its 
silk and velvet in this congregation. No eru- 
dition sets the audience agape with wonder. 
But from the grassy homes in which the little 
children lie, and from the statelier vaults of 
marble and granite, from the heights of 
" Ocean Hill," and from beside the placid 
" Sylvan Water," there chimes forth one un- 
broken song of morning adoration to the Con- 
queror of the grave, — 



A SABBATH MORMNG IN GREENWOOD. 337 

*• Christ the Lord is risen to-day, 
Our triumphant, holy day. 
Loud the song of victory raise ; 
Shout our great Redeemer's praise." 

And so we pass along through the enchant- 
ing avenues and paths, which were to us but 
so many aisles in one beautiful temple. In 
one avenue we passed the tombs of some of 
our " spiritual children," who had been born 
unto us in the Gospel. They did not recog- 
nize their old pastor as he walked by. In 
another plot we discovered the name of a dear 
friend, whose dying-bed we had attended. She 
needed no more kind words of consolation. 
The last tear was dry. 

On Forest Ridge, beneath a massive stone 
cross, our old friend and benefactor. Dr. Ed- 
ward Hobinson, has found his sepulchre. No 
more does he explore the streets or ruins of 
Jerusalem: he has entered that new Jerusa- 
lem, which is as a " bride adorned for her hus- 
band." Over the hill from his tomb we come 
to the resting-place of two sisters, one of 
whom had numbered one hundred years on 



338 THOUGHT-HIVES. 

earth, and the other one hundred and seven ! 
Poor old pilgrims, were they not wearied out 
and glad to lie down and sleep together? 

On the green slope beside Crescent Water 
sleeps Bethune. The marble tablet at the 
gate bears his sweet, joyful line, "It is not 
death to die." My mind runs back to that 
Sabbath in Florence when the old home-sick 
pastor bade adieu to earth, to join "the 
brotherhood on high." We wander on fur- 
ther. Here, on a lofty knoll, is a superb 
monument, bearing the marble effigy of the 
sinking steamer " Arctic," and the names of 
several who went down with her into the deep. 
Voices seem to be whispering in the air* 
" And the sea gave up the dead which were 
in it ; " " there shall be no more sea ! " 

And so, as we wander on, every aisle of 
this Greenwood sanctuary was vocal to the 
inner ear. The hour for worship with the 
living was drawing near, and we turned home- 
ward. For one moment we halted in the little 
precious plot of ground, where Calverley, the 
sculptor, has carved the features of a sunny 



A SABBATH MORNING IN GREENWOOD. 339 

child-face, which we hope yet to meet in 
Heaven. Under it is written, in his broken 
childish speech, his last Sunday-school text : 
" Hide me under de sadow of dy wing." 

A flowering dogwood tree stands beside the 
spot, white with a thousand blossoms. Beau- 
tiful sentinel of the tomb ! thy blossoms shall 
soon fall to the ground like the hopes that are 
buried here ! But from the Sabbath air of 
heaven there floats down to my ear the celes- 
tial message : " They are without fault before 
the throne of God. They see His face and 
His name is written on their foreheads ! " 



A SONG OF PExiCE. 



\ X 7E close these pages with the following 
^ * sweet song of peace. It issued first 
from the devout heart of one of God's suffer- 
ing children. Mrs. Jane Crewdson of Lan- 
cashire, England, a member of the Orthodox 
branch of the " Society of Friends," sang this 
heart-song from a chamber of painful sick- 
ness. She kissed the rod of chastisement 
which was laid upon her, and found that, like 
Jonathan's " rod," it had the " taste of the 
honey " upon it. Many who have never seen 
them before will doubtless welcome them 
here ; and will read them the more often as 
they draw nearer to the " Better Country." 

THE LITTLE V^HILE. 

Oh for the peace which floweth as a river, 
Maldng life's desert places bloom and smile ; 

Oh for the faith to grasp heaven's bright " for ever," 
Amid the shadow's of earth's ' ' little while " ! 



A SONG OF PEACE. 341 

•* A little wMle," for patient vigil keeping, 
To face the stern, to wrestle with the strong ; 

" A little while," to sow the seed with weeping, 
Then bind the sheaves and sing the harvest song ; 

" A little while," to wear the weeds of sadness. 
To pace, with weary step, through miry ways ; 

Then to pour forth the fragrant oil of gladness, 
And clasp the girdle round the robe of praise. 

*' A little while," 'midst shadow and illusions. 
To strive by faith love's mysteries to spell ; 

Then read each dark enigma's bright solution ; 

Then hail sight's verdict, " He doeth all things well.'* 

" A little while," the earthen pitcher taking 
To wayside brooks, from far-off fountains fed ; 

Then the cool lip its thirst for ever slaking, 
Beside the fulness of the Fountain-head. 

" A little while," to keep the oil from failing, 
" A little while " faith's flickering lamp to trim ; 

And then the Bridegroom's coming footstep hailing, 
To haste to meet Him with the bridal hymn. 

And He, who is Himself the Gift and Giver, 

The future glory and the present smile, 
With the bright promise of the glad ' ' for ever " 

Will lio-ht the shadows of the " little while." 



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Chalmers, Thomas, D.D. 

Christian Revelatiox. 2 vois S2.50 

Natural, Theology. 2 vols 2.60 

Charlesworth, Miss. 

The Last Command 30 

Charnock, Stephen, 

On the Attributes of God. 8vo ... 3.50 

" Perspicuity and deptU, metaphysical subtlety and evangelical simplicity, im- 
mense learning and plain but irrefragable reasoning, conspire to render this work one 
of the most inestimable productions that ever did honor to the sanctified jud^ient 
and genius of a human being "— Toplwly. 

Cheever, Rev. Geo. B. 

Lectures on Bunvan. 12mo 2.00 

"Dr. Cheever's name will go down to posterity conjoined with the immortal 
dreamer, in a uniou no less intimate, though more honorable, than that of Johnson 
and Boswell. As a commentator of Bunyaa, he stands without peer or rival " — 
Christian dironicle. 

Lectures on Cotvter 1.50 

BiiiLE IN THE Common Schools 1.25 

Clark, John A., D.D. 

Walk about Zion 1.25 

Gathered Fragments 1.50 

Young Disciple 1.50 

Pastor's Testimony 1.25 

Awake, Thou Sleeper 1.25 

Clarke, Samuel, D.D. 

Scripture Promises .. .. .... .50 

Collier, Rev. Joseph. 

Dawn of Heaven .... . 1.50 

Cripple of Antioch. 

By the author of the " Schonberg-Cotta Family " 1.00 

Cuyler, Rev. T. L. 

Though i>HivEs. 12mo 1.75 

" Good nature, human sympathy, and Christian zeal kindle all hts pages into a 
magnetic warmth. Genial, open-hearted, and fascinating in his style, both spoken and 
written, he has made for himself a land-wide reputation, and written his name every- 
where as a household word " — Evangelist. 

The Cedar Christian. IGmo 90 

*' Many of these papers are intense, they are all clear and forcible, and some of 
tliem are replete with that grace which comes of fervor, — that soft and mellow light 
which the fancy throws around what the heart sees as well as tlie eyes." — Brooklyn, 
Union, 

The Empty Cuiii. A Book of Consolation. 24ino 1.00 

" The most beautiful little gift for bereaved parents is the Rev. Mr. Cuyler's trib- 
ute to his Georgie, — the ' Empty Crib.' A saintly bunch of white lilies is it from full 
hands and hearts." — Zion's HfraUU 

Strav Arrows. 18iuo GO 



ROBERT CARTER AND BROTHERS CATALOGUE. 



D'Aubigne, J. H. Merle, D.D. 

The HisTOKY of the Kei okmation. 5 vols. 12mo $6.00 

*- „ „ ,, „ all in 1 vol 3.00 

" Without doing any violence to historical truth, he inTests history -with all the 
charms of a dignitied romance. He writes as one whose own soul has been stirred by 
•what he describes. His characters and scenes have deeply impressed his mind ; and, 
•with the enthusiasm and skill of the poet, he sketches on the historic page his fa£ci« 
Dating, life-like pictures." 

The History of the Eefokmation in the Time of Calvin. 5 vols. 10.00 
" Part of a work that will lire through all time. Apart from the charms of a 
pleasing and fluent style, pictorial diction, and intense vitality, its accurate erudition, 
careful statements, judicial impartiality, and eager appreciation of good in any con- 
nection, are merits entitling to immortality. It is a brilliant and powerful history 
of one of the greatest revolutions in human affairs and prospects." — Christian Advo- 
cate. 

Daily Commentary 

Foil Family Worship. By 180 Clergymen of Scotland 2.50 

David's Psalms in Metre. 



12mo, cloth $1.25 

„ gilt . . . 1.50 
,, *Turkey morocco . 4.50 

ISmo, cloth fiO 

With Brown's Notes . . .75 



18mo, cloth, gilt . . . $0.75 

48mo, cloth 30 

„ gilt ... .40 
,, Sheep 40 



Davies', Samuel, 

Sermons. 3 vols 3.75 

"1 most sincerely wish that young ministers more especially would peruse these 
volumes with the deepest attention and seriousness, and endeavor to form their dis- 
oourses according to the model of our author." — Rev. Thomas Gibbons. 

Dick, Thomas, D.D. 

Lectures on Theology. Complete in 1 volume. 8vo Z.M 

" We recommend this work in the very strongest terms to the Biblical student. 
It is, as a whole, superior to any other system of theology in our language. As an 
elementary book, especially fitted for those who are commencing the study of divinity, 
it is unrivalled." — Christian Journal. 

Lectures on the Acts 2.25 

*Doddridge, Rev. Philip. 

Family Expositor on the New Testament. Royal 8vo. Sheep . 

Drummond, Rev. D. T. K. 

On the Parables. New edition. Large 12mo 1.75 

*Dublin Tracts. 

Per packet 1.00 

Duchess of Gordon, 

Memoir of 1.25 

Djncan, Rev. Henry. 

Philosophy of the Seasons. 2 vols 3.00 



ROBERT CARTER AND BROTHERS* CATALOGUE. 



Duncan, Mrs. M. G. L. 

Memoih ok Maky L. Duxan $0.00 

Memdik of GfioKUE A. Lu.NuiE 75 

Waki^'G Dkeam 35 

Duncan, Mary B. M. 

BiHLE Hours 1.25 

East, Rev. John. 

My Saviour .... 75 

*Edwards, Jonathan. 

Works. In 4 volumes, with Valuable Additions, and a copious General 

Index. Bevelled boards 12.00 

" I cousider Jonathan Edwards the greatest of the sons of men. He ranks with 
the brightest luminaries of the Christian Church, not excluding any country, or any 
age since the apostolic." — Robert Hall. 

"That great master-mind, Jonathan Edwards, whose close-sighted observation, 
clear judgment, and unbending faithfulness were of the very highest order." — Dr. 
Fye Smith. 

" Jonathan Edwards is a writer of great originality and piety, and with extraordi- 
nary mental powers. He, in fact, commenced a new and higher school in divinity, to 
which the great body of evangelical authors who have since lived have been indebted." 
Rev. E. Bickersteth. 

" To theological students his works are almost indispensable. In all the branches 
of theology, — didactic, polemical, casuistic, experimental, and practical, — he had few 
equals, and perhaps no superior." — Orme. 

" Since the days of Calvin, the world has seen no greater theologian than Jona- 
than Edwards." — American Presbyterian. 

Ok the Will. Separate 1.50 

English Pulpit. 

A Series of Sermons 2.25 

Erskine, Rev. Ralph. 

Gospel SoN^'ETS 75 

Evidences of Christianity. 

Lectures before the University of Virginia 3.00 

Fairbairn, Patrick, D.D. 

*The Revelation of Law in Scripture, considered with respect both 

to its own Nature, and its relative Place in Successive Dispensations 2.50 

" Able and scholarly, and well calculated to correct the false notions regarding law 
in the divine administration." — United Presbyterian 

"The Evangelical student will find here a rich and strengthening feast, and will 
rise from it with increased confidence in the eternal verities of the gospel." — Nat 
Baptist. 

Family Worship. 

A Series of Prayers for Morning and Evening throughout the Year. By 

180 Clergymen of Scotland. New Edition, at half the former price . 2.50 

"This volume is a treasure of its kind. The prayers are simple, varied, and im- 
pressive, excellent in the grasp of their subjects, and fervent in the words of supplica- 
tion.'' — IValchinun. 



8 ROBERT CARTER AND BROTHERS* CATALOGUE. 

Flavel, John. 

On the Assembly's Catechism $0.60 

Foster, J ohn. 

Essay on Decision of Character 1.25 

,, „ Popular Ignorance 1.25 

„ ,, Improvement of Time 1.25 

" As an essayist, John Foster was a bright and shining light. As diEFerent as pos- 
Bible from Addison, Steele, and Johnson, he far excels them in the importance of hia 
subjects, and in the originality, largeness, and vigor of his conceptions." 

Foxe, John. 

Book of Martyrs. Complete edition, royal 8vo. Illustrated. Sheep 5.00 

Fresh Leaves 

From the Book and its Story. By the author of " The Book and 

its Story." With more than 50 illustrations. 12mo 2.00 

"This is one of the books that we would be glad to see in wide circulation. It is 
particularly rich in its treatment of the Old Testament period, making use of the ma- 
terials of recent travels, explorations, and discoveries, and illustrating it by more than 
fifty engravings, twelve of which are full-page. The surprising confirmations of the 
sacred record by the discoveries of the last few years receive full and appropriate notice. 
The ordinary, and even the professional reader, will find here a large amount of inter- 
esting and important information. Let our young people get it." — Northern Christian 
Advocate. 

Gasparin's, Madame, 

Near and Heavenly Horizons. 12mo 1.50 

" This is a book to be enjoyed and revelled in rather than criticised. The reader 
who sits down to it will have a rare literary treat." — Scottish Guardian. 

Giberne, Agnes. 

AiMEE. A Tale of the Days of James the Second. 12mo 1.75 

A powerful and well-written story, giving a graphic historical picture of a very 
interesting period in English history. 

Gilfillan, George. 

Martyrs and Heroes of the Scottish Covenant 1.00 

God is Love 125 

^Goodrich, C. A. 

Bible Geography .50 

Gosse 

On Life in Various Forms 1.50 

Gray, Thomas. 

Elegy, AND Other Poems. Cloth, plain, $1.50; cloth, gilt . . . . 2.00 

Griscom, John, Life of • • • i-^« 

Guinness' Sermons iso 

Guthrie, William. 

Christian's Giikat Interest 1.00 



ROBERT CARTER AND BROTHERS* CATALOGUE. 



Guthrie, Thomas, D.D. 



The Gospel in Ezekiel ..... $1.50 

The Saints' Inheritance 1.50 

The Way to Life 1.50 

The Pakables of our Lord. Illustrated 1.50 

The above four volumes are uniform. 

The City: Its Sins and Sorrows 60 

Ragged Schools 90 

Speaking to the Heart 1.00 

Man and the Gospel 2.00 

Out of Harness 2.00 

Our Father's Business 1.50 

Wind-Wafted Seed 2.00 

Studies of Character 1.75 

Saving Knowledge 1.50 

"Dr. Guthrie is a poet-preacher, but in the beet sense of that term. He makes 
his poetic genius subservient to the great object of his ministry, inculcating and en- 
forcing truth ; he hangs his beautiful garlands on the cross." — Presbyterian. 

Haldane, Alexander. 

Memoirs of K. and J. A. Haldane 2.50 

Haldane, Robert, 

On Romans 3.00 

Of this work the Edinburgh "Presbyterian Review" says: "In ingenuity, it is 
equal to Turretine ; in theological accuracy, superior. It is at least as judicious as 
Scott, and more terse, pointed, and discursive. The only Commentary on the Romans 
that we have read that it does not excel is that of Calvin. Calvin and Haldane stand 
alone, the possessors, as expounders of this Epistle, of nearly equal honors." 

Hall, Newman, D.D. 

Follow Jesus 35 

Quench not the Spirit 35 

Now 35 

Hamilton, James, D.D. 

The Royal Preacher 1.25 

Lessons from the Great Biography 1.25 

Life in Earnest 50 

Mount of Olives 50 

Harp on the Willows 50 

Emblems from Eden 50 

The Lake of Galilee 50 

Happy Home 75 

Life of Lady Colquhoun 

Lamp and Lantern 50 

The Prodigal Son. Illustrated 3.00 

The Pearl of Parables 1 25 

Life of Richard Williams 1 00 

,, „ Ja.mes Wilson 1 25 

Moses, the Man of God 1 50 

Life of Dr Hamilton. By Arnot 2.50 

" In Dr. Hamilton's writings there is so quick a sympathy with the beautiful in 
nature and art, so inexhaustible a fertility of illustration from all departments of 
knowledge, so pictorial a vividness of language, that his pages move before us like some 
glittering summer land^scape glowing in the light of a gorgeous sunset." — Observer. 



10 ROBERT CARTER AND BROTHERS* CATALOGUE. 

Hammond, Captain 

Life of. 12mo $1.25 

Hanna, Rev. William, D.D. 

The Life of Ouk Lokd. 3 vols. 12mo 4.50 

" There is no parade of learning, no distracting foot-notes, no allusions for the 
erudite alone. It is an unincumbered, unartiflcial work. We are presented with the 
products, and not with the processes, of reasoning ; with the results of scholarship, 
without the display of the critical knowledge on which they are based. 

" From a perusal of these volumes we believe that the sympathetic reader will 
carry away a more distinct image of the character and life of Christ and his relations 
to his contemporaries, than he can gain from the more brilliant page of Pressense, or 
the more elaborate discussions of Neander." — North British Review. 

The Wars of the Huguenots. 12mo 1.50 

Hart, Jcfhn S. 

Kemovijsg Mountains 1.25 

Haste to the Rescue 75 

Havelock, General Sir Henry, 

Life of 75 

Hawes, Rev. Erskine, 

Life of 1.00 

Helena^s Household. 

A Tale of Rome in the First Century. 12nio 2.00 

" The gladiatorial scenes in the amphitheatre, the burning of Rome, life in the 
catacombs, &c., are all depicted with a graphic pen in this powerful story." 

Henry, Matthew. 

*An Exposition of the Old and New Testaments. 5 vols, quarto. 

Sheep 25.00 

" For some particular purposes, and in some particular respects, other commentaries 
may be preferable; but, taking it as a whole, and as adapted to every class of readers, 
this Commentary may be said to combine more excellencies than any work of the kind 
which was ever written in any language." — Rev. Dr. Alexander. 

" It is the best Commentary by far from any one hand in the English language, 
and we may say the best in the world." — Independent. 

" It has never been surpassed." — Evangelist. 

Communicant's Companion . ....,, , .60 

Hervey, Rev. James. 

Meditations. 12mo 1.50 

„ 18mo 60 

Hetherington, W. M., D.D. 

Church of Scotland 2.50 

History of the Westminster Assembly 1.25 

♦' It contains the history of one of the most interesting portions of the Christian 
Church, and is distinguished, as well by its neat and graceful style, as by the fulness, 
perspicuity, and the fidelity of its statements." 



ROBERT CARTER AND BROTHERS* CATALOGUE. 11 



Hill, George, D.D. 

Lectures on Divinitt. 8vo . . $3.50 

" The candor and fairness of this author are remarkable. In stating the opinions 
of opponents, he is singularly impartial, and states their arguments in their full 
strength ; an unfailing indication of real greatness, and assured confidence in the sound- 
ness of his own. You feel yourself in a serene and refreshing atmosphere, as you follow 
him in these pages. His notices, or history of varying opinions in theology, are very 
valuable." — Ckristian Mirror. 

Hodge, Rev. Charles, D.D. 

A Commentary on the Epistle to the Ephesians. 12mo . . . 1.75 
" Dr. Hodges' Commentary on the Ephesians displays the ripe scholarship, the 
convincing exegesis, and the practical development, which imparted such value to his 
exposition of the Epistle to the Romans. It is a book for the study of the scholar, and 
yet most happily adapted for the instruction of general readers, by whom it should be 
promptly purchased." — Fresbyterian. 

A Commentary on the Epistles to the Corinthians. 2 vols. 

12mo 3.50 

*' It is an occasion of thankfulness when a man so qualified to expound the Word 
of God as Dr. Hodge gives another of his works to the generation in which he lives. 
Trained in a school of severe mental discipline, furnished with all learning needful for 
his work, and, above all, having a profound reverence for the Word itselfj so that his 
great desire is to know what is the mind of the Spirit, this great expositor addresses 
himself to the task with no disposition to torture texts into proofs of his theories, but 
to draw from them the sincere milk of the Word, that his readers may grow thereby. 
This is the only worth of a Commentary." — Observer. 

Essays and Reviews. 8vo . . 3.00 

Hodge, Rev. A. A., D.Dc 

Outlines of Theology. Eoyal 12mo 2.00 

" Although we have seen various compends and outlines of theology, we know 
of no one so satisfactory and so well adapted to the present exigency as the one before 
us. It meets every question with reference to the present state of theology, and the 
manner in which its radical truths are discussed. It will accordingly become an 
important aid to students, to pastors, and to Bible classes. It is sufficiently full to 
satisfy readers generally who may wish to attain an intelligent view of revealed truth, 
and wiU prove suggestive and stimulative to earnest inquiry and study." — Presby- 
terian. 

Holt, Emily S. 

Ashcliffe Hall. A Tale of the Last Century 1.25 

" Is told with the exceptional power of the author, whose sketches in this line are 
not unworthy the author of the ' Schbnberg-Cotta Series,' so vivid and life-like are they 
in their delineations." — **?. S. Times. 

IsouLT Barry op Wynscote. A Tale of Tudor Time.<5 .... 1.50 

" Hers are capital hooks for thoughtful young people." — Literary World. 

" Cannot be read vrithout pleasure, nor laid down withou* regret." — The Christian 

Home, Bishop, 

On the Psalms 2.50 

" There breathes through the whole book so much sympathy with the Psalmist, in 
his humble views of himself, and his exalted conceptions of Jehovah, so much spiritu- 
ality and such love for the Redeemer, as to render this Commentary one of peculiar 
fitness for ftimily reading." 



12 ROBERT CARTER AND BROTHERS* CATALOGUE. 

Home, Thomas H. 

An Jntroductkjn to the Critical Study and Knowledge of 

THE Holy Scriptures. 2 vols. Cloth $5.00 

Or in 1 vol., sheep S.yO 

" It is a work of gigantic labor. The results of the research and erudition of Bib- 
lical scholars of all countries and in all time are faithfully garnered, and on the 
whole well digested." — Evangelist. 

Howard, John ; 

Or, the Prison World of Europe 1.25 

Howe, John. 

*WoRKS. 2 vols, imperial 8vo 5 00 

" In both phDosophical and practical respects, Howe's works are of the yery 
choicest value for a clergyman's library." — Rev. Br. Shedd. 

Howie, John. 

Scots Worthies. Illustrated 3.50 

Huntin^on, Prof. F. D. 

HuJviAN Society 2.26 

Hymns of the Church Militant. (See Wamer.) 
Jacobus, Melancthon W., D.D. Commentaries . . • 

*' The excellent Commentaries of Dr. Jacobus have deservedly attained a high 
reputation ; and their wide circulation proves how well they are adapted to the wants 
of both ministers and laymen. They present in a brief compass the results of extensiye 
erudition, abound in judicious exposition and pertinent illustration, and are, moreover, 
distinguished by doctrinal soundness, evangelical character, and an eminently devout 
spirit." — Drs. Hodge., Green, Atwater, and others, of Princeton, N.J. 

Genesis. 2 vols, in 1. Price reduced to 1.50 

*' The Commentary on Genesis contains the most complete refutation of sceptical 
'»bjections to the Sacred Books which we have ever seen." — Christian Era. 

Matthew and Mark. In 1 volume 1.50 

•' Characterized by ripe scholarship, sound judgment, critical acumen, discrimi- 
nating wisdom, concise eloquence, ajid Christian fervor." — Original Secession Mag- 
azine, Scotland. 

Luke and John. In 1 volume 1.50 

" More fitness to the wants of those who have no knowledge of the Greek Script- 
ures than any other popular Commentary known to us." — Nan- Conformist, London. 

Acts. Price reduced to . 1.50 

" Calm, judicious, learned criticism, and clear and satisfactory exposition of the 
text, and an able defence of important truths." — Presbyterian Witness. 

Jacobus' Catechetical Question Books. 

•Three books in one: the Book of Scripture, the entire Catechism, the 
Question Book, and an elegant Map. With an admirable system 
of training to the study of the Scripture and Catechism together. 
6 vols. Price reduced to 15 cents each. 

Genesis. Matthew. Mark. 

Luke. John. Acts. 



ROBERT CARTER AND BROTHERS' CATALOGUE. 13 



James, John Angel. 

The Youmg Man's Friend $1.25 

" The young men of our land have in this book a rare treasure." — Advocate. 

The Young Woman's Fkiend 1.25 

" Those traits of character that give heauty, strength, and power to youthful 
females are here set forth in glowing, earnest language." — iV. Y. Observer. 

The Christian Father's Present .... 1.26 

The Course of Faith 1.25 

The Anxious Inquirer 50 

The Widow Directed 50 

Jay, William. 

Morning Exercises 1.00 

Evening Exercises 1.00 

Morning and Evening Exercises. Large type, laid paper. 4 vols. 

12mo. Morocco, $20.00; half calf, $12.00; cloth, gilt top. . . , 6.00 
*' This edition of the Exercises is in four large 12mo Tolumes. It is remarkably 
•well printed, in large, clear type, so that the old and those of weak sight can enjoy the 
good things prepared for them by one of the most pious and best writers which the 
■world has produced." — Christian Advocate. 

Christian Contemplated .60 

Jerram, Charles. 

Tribute to an Only Daughter 50 

Juliane, Louise, 

Life of ' 1.25 

Kennedy, Grace. 

Father Clement. 16mo 1.00 

Ker, Rev. John. 

The Day Dawn and the Rain, and Other Discourses 2.00 

" This is a very remarkable volume of sermons. Mr. Ker has dug boldly and dili- 
gently into the vein which Robertson opened ; but the result, as compared with that 
of the first miner, is as the product of skilled machinery set against the vigorous un- 
aided arm. , . Robertson's is the glitter of the ore on the bank ; Ker's is the uniform 
shining of the wrought metal. We have not seen a volume of sermons for many a day 
which will so thoroughly repay both purchase and perusal and reperusal. And not 
the least merit of these sermons is, that they are eminently suggestive." — Con- 
temporary Review. 

Key to the Assembly's Catechism so 

King, David, D.D. 

On the Eldership 75 

Kitto, John. 

Bible Illustrations. 4 vols 7.00 

"Ministers will find much material for the illustration and interpretation of 
Scripture, which it will be difiBcult for them to collect for themselves from a well-fur- 
nished hbrary." — Christian Intelligencer. 

" For the variety, accuracy, and richness of the illustration brought to bear upon 
the sacred text, this work stands, we believe, unrivalled." — Witness. 

" Sabbath school and Bible class teachers and scholars will find in it the needed 
explanations of difiBculties and elucidation of obscurities in the geographical, historical, 
chronological, and peculiar Oriental allusions of the sacred writers."— iJcZig/ows 
Herald. 



14 ROBERT CARTER AND BROTHERS* CATALOGUE. 



Knill, Rev. Richard, 

Life of $0.75 

Krummacher, F. W., D.D. 

Last Days of Elisha .75 

BisEN Redeemer 1.25 

*AUTOBIOGRAPHY 2.0Q 

Lays of the Holy Land, illustrated. Morocco, $7.50; cloth, gilt 4.50 

Lee, William. 

*The Inspiration of Holy Scripture . . 2.50 

" This is a book for Biblical students, for the ministry, and for readers who can 
appreciate the ample fruits of patient study and extensive erudition on the nature and 
proofs of the inspiration of the Bible. It is an elaborate work, of great learning." 

Leighton, Archbishop. 

Complete Works. 1 vol. 8vo 3.00 

*' Leighton was an elegant scholar, extensively read in the Christian Fathers and 
the scholastic philosophy, and not a stranger to the world, for he had seen much of it. 
His sentences breathe a heavenly animation, and his manner of conveying them pos 
sesses simplicity and originality, sweetness and power." — John Pye Smith. 

Lewis, Tayler. 

The Divine Human 1.50 

Life Work 125 

Lillie's Thessalonians 2.00 

Logan, William. 

Words of Comfort. For Parents bereaved of Little Children . . . 1.25 
" The plan and execution of this little work are alike most admirable. We cannot 
exaggerate its merits ; and rivals, that see it put above and before themselves, will 
frankly acknowledge that this is just as it ought to be." — United Presb. Magazine. 

Lundie, Rev. R. H. 

The Crown without the Conflict ... 2b 

Lyman, Henry, 

Life op 1.50 

McCheyne, Rev. Robert Murray. 

Works. 2 vols. 8vo 5.00 

" The tenderness of his conscience ; the truthfulness of his character ; his dead- 
ness to the world ; his deep humility and exalted devotion ; his consuming love to 
Christ, and the painful solicitude with which he eyed every thing affecting his honor; 
the fidelity with which he denied himself, and told others of their faults or dangers; 
his meekness in bearing wrong, and his unwearied industry in doing good; the mild- 
ness which tempered his unyielding firmness, and the jealousy for the Lord of Hosts 
which commanded, but did not supplant, the yearnings of a most afiectionate heart, — 
rendered him altogether one of the loveliest specimens of the Spirit's workmanship." 
From the late Rev. James Hamilton, of London, 

*McClelland, Alexander, D.D. 

Sermons . . 2.00 



ROBERT CARTER AND BROTHERS' CATALOGUE. 15 



McCosh^ James, LL.D. 

The Method of the Divine Government, Physical and Mokal. 

8vo $2.50 

" We regard this book as the great work of the age. It will have its place on the 
shelf of the scholar and thinker, by the side of Butler's Analogy, as long as there shall 
be scholars and thinkers. The name of McCosh, by this work alone, is entitled to a 
place of unsurpassed eminence for intellectual vigor and strength, depth, comprehen- 
siveness, and concentration, to which few can attain." — Presbyterian of the West. 

Typical Forms and Special Ends in Creation. 8vo .... 2.50 
" It presents a new form of the argument in proof of intelligent and beneficent 
design in the Creator. . . There are few readers who will not find themselves intro- 
duced to much that is new and true and wonderful in this volume." — Detroit Tribune. 

The Intuitions of the Mind Inductively Investigated . . 3.00 
" No philosopher, before Dr. McCosh, has clearly brought out the stages by which 
an original and individual intuition passes first into an articulate but still individual 
judgment, and then into a universal maxim or principle ; and no one has so clearly 
or completely classified and enumerated our intuitive convictions, or exhibited in detail 
their relations to the various sciences which repose on them as their foundations. The 
amount of summarized information which it contains is very great ; and it is the only 
work on the very important subject with which it deals. Never was such a work so 
much needed as in the present day. It is the only scientific work adapted to counteract 
the school of Mill, Bain, ajid Herbert Spencer, which is so steadily prevailing among 
the students of the present generation." — London Quarterly Rfview, April, 1865. 

A Defence of Fundamental Truth. Being an Examination of Mr. 

J. S. Mill's Philosophy. 8vo 3.00 

" The spirit of these discussions is admirable. Fearless and courteous, McCosh 
never hesitates to bestow praise when merited, nor to attack a heresy wherever found. 
Much of the language is clear, sometimes elegant. It is a beautiful volume in type and 
general appearance ; while, as an unhesitating defence of some most important truths, 
it must enhance the reputation of its distinguished author." — Congregational 
Review. 

Logic. 12mo 1.50 

"• This is the work of one who is master of the subject, and thoroughly acquainted 
with the systems of those who have preceded him in this department of science. It is 
a condensed but exhaustive exhibition of the principles of the science, presented ^vith 
great clearness, freshness, and compactness, and is admirably adapted to the object 
intended." — Evangelical Quarterly. 

Christianity and Positivism. A Series of Lectures 1.75 

" Dr. McCosh has shown most conclusively that science is assailing religion, not 
by its quality of science, not by what it knows, but by what it guesses at. He is help- 
ing the Church to oppose to such partisan guesses and inferences real facts and solid 
argument No better service could be done to religion at this moment than by 
putting hi. Look in the hands of every religious teacher in the country." — N.Y. 
Observer. 

Academic Teaching in Europe. (Inaugural Address) 50 

McGhee, Rev. Robert" J. 

Lectures on Ephesians. 8vo . . 3.00 

" These Lectures form a delightful and profitable running commentary upon this 
Epistle, so rich in experimental truth." — Zion''s Herald. 



16 ROBERT CARTER AND BROTHERS* CATALOGDB. 



Mcllvaine, Rt. Rev. C. P. 

The Tkuth and Life $2.60 

Mcilvaine, J. H,, D.D. 

DiKECTIONS TO I^TQUIRING SOULS 25 

Macduff, J. R., D.D. 

Morning AND Night Watches. 32mo. Gilt edges, $0.60; red edges .50 
The Mind and Words of Jesus. ,, „ „ $0.60; „ „ . .50 
The Footsteps of St. Paul 1.50 

" It is a work without compare, either as to the character, amount, or arrange- 
ment of the materials, which, gathered from all available sources, is yet so lucidly 
arranged and well combined as to form a unique exposition of the many phases in which 
the history may be viewed." — Churchman. 

Family Prayers 1.25 

" Direct, fervent, and comprehensive." — Evangelist . 

Memories of Bethany 1.00 

'' A precious little volume, full of comfort to sorrowing believers." — Edinburgh 
Witness. 

Memories of Gennesaret 1.50 

The Bow in the Cloud. Gilt, $0.75; plain 50 

Wood-Cutter of Lebanon 75 

The Great Journey 50 

Child's Book of Divinity 35 

The Story of Bethlehem 1.00 

The Hart and the Water-Brooks 1.00 

The Cities of Refuge 50 

Grapes of Eshcol . 1.00 

Sunsets on the Hebrew Mountains 1.50 

Thoughts of God 50 

The Prophet of Fire 1.50 

Altar Incense: Private Prayers 1.00 

The Shepherd and his Flock 1.50 

Curfew Chimes 75 

Memories op Olivet 2.00 

Fergus Morton 35 

Noontide at Sychar 1.50 

Memories of Patmos ■" 2.00 

Saint Paul in Rome 1.25 

" This book is an unusually attractive one, — Dr. Macduffs rich style and abundant 
imagery being suited to the topics he was discussing in the old city where Paul dwelt 
two whole years in his ' hired house,' and where the associations would powerfully 
eommjnd the Pauline truths uttered by the preacher." — Presbyterian. 

Macgregor, Rev. Duncan. 

The Shepherd of Israel; or, Illustrations of the Inner Life. 16rao 1.25 
" A volume of Sermons which breathe from every sentence, almost, the sweetness 
of a ripe Christian experience. These sermons are intended to illustrate and urge 
upon men the higher Christian life, — a life of quiet and confident trust." — Journal 
and Messenger. 

Mackenzie, Rev. W. B. 

Home Religion 60 

Macleod, Norman, D.D. 

Parish 1'apers 1.25 



ROBERT CARTER AND BROTHERS* CATALOGUE. 17 



Marsh% Miss, 

Life of Caftaix Vicaus $0.60 

English Hearts axd Hands 1-25 

Light for the Line 35 

The Victory Wos 35 

The Haven and Prize 35 

IkllDNIGHT ChISIES 35 

Life of Arthur Vandeleuk 1-25 

Life of Dr. 3L4.rsh 1-75 

Shining Light 50 

Rift in the Clouds 35 

The Prince and the Prayer. Paper 10 

Marshall, Walter, 

On Sanctification . .75 

Martyrs of Spain. 

By the author of the " Schonberg-Cotta Family " 1.00 

Mason, John M., D.D., 

Life of 2.00 

*Meade, Bishop. 

Bible and Classics 2.50 

Meikle, James. 

Solitude Saveetened 1.25 

Missing Link, The 125 

Monod, Adolphe, D.D. 

LUCILLA 75 

More, Hannah. 

Private Dkvot[ON. 18mo, S0.75; 32mo, red edges 50 

Spirit of Prayer. 32tno, red edges 50 

Morel!, J. D. 

Historical and Critical View of Speculative Philosophy. 8vo 3.50 

" This history of Speculative Philosophy is well known to be the most compre- 
hensive and complete book of reference on this subject that English authorship has yet 
produced ■' — American Thtological Review. 

Murdock, James, D.D. 

*MuRr)ocic's ;\Ioshe[m's Ecclesiastical History. 3 vols. 8vo- 

New Edition. Price oiil\' 5.00 

" The standard character of this history is known to all our readers. As a text- 
book, it is needed by all our theological students, and should be in every well-furnished 
library. We are glad to see a new edition of it, in three handsome volumes, on good 
paper, and neatly bound in cloth, at the very low price of ^." — American Presby- 
terian Review, 

The New Testament. Translated from Syriac Peshito Version. 8vo 2 50 

" It is a book not only for the learned, but for all who wish to read and under- 
stand the Scriptures; for, although it does not alter the general meaning of the 
English version, it often makes tlxat meaning more clear, and explains passages which 
have seemed obscure and difficult." — New York Observer. 

Nevius, Mrs. Helen S. C. 

Our Life in China 1.50 

" A very interesting volume, giving no dry details, but introducing us into the 
dsissionai-y's hoiues, her work and her associations." — Northern Churck Advocate. 



18 EGBERT CARTER AND BROTHERS* CATALOGUE. 



Newton, Richard, D.D. 

Best Things $1.25 

King's Highway 1,25 

Bible Blessings 1,25 

Safe Compass 1.25 

Great Pilot 1.25 

Bible Jewels 1.25 

These six volumes in a neat box, with the title of the Jewel Case . 7.50 

Bible Wonders 1.25 

Natuhe's Wonders 1.25 

Jewish Tabernacle 1.25 

Rills from the Fountain 1 25 

Giants, and how to Fight them 6i> 

" He seems to have an inexhaustible fund of illustrations, and knows just -when 
and how to use them ; and clergymen or Sabbath-school superintendents, who find it 
difficult to let themselTes down to the little folks in attempting to address them, will find 
effiective 'helps over hard places' in his 'Best Things,' 'King's Highway,' and other 
volumes." — Congregationalist. 

" One of our western friends," remarks the Sunday-School Times, " in a recent 
letter, says, ' I know the value of Dr. Newton's books. There is not a pastor in the 
State of Illinois but should have them.' We might add, that there is not a Sabbatli- 
school teacher, nor Sabbath-school library, 'but should have them.' " 

Newton, Adelaide L., 

Life of 1.26 

Song of Solomon 125 

The Heavenly Life 1,75 

On Hebkeavs 1.50 

Newton, Rev. John, 

Works of 3.00 

Omnipotence of Loving-Kindness 125 

Paley, William. 

Evidences of Christianity. Edited bj' Professor C. M. Nairne. 12mo 1.50 
"It would be a work of supererogation, at this late day, to dwell on the peculiar 
excellences of Paley 's treatise on the Evidences of Christianity It is not probable it 
will ever be superseded. Its learning, its exactness, its wonderful clearness of thought, 
its logical force, are incomparable. . . . The American editor has fortified the points 
in which Paley has failed ; and, by his additional matter, has unquestionably fur- 
nished the best, as well as the safest, edition of Paley extant." — Presbyterian. 

Pascal, Jaqueline, 

Life of ...... 1.25 

Paterson, A exander S., 

On the Shorter Catechism ... . -. 75 

Pathway of Promise 60 

Phillip, Rev. Robert. 

Devotional Guides 2.00 

Pollok, Robert. 

Course of Tlmk. . . 1.25 



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